windthread

altered state

maybe it had to do with having needed to be so "in the world/of the world" all week?   But being back with this Cloth was an experience today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All day i stitched.  My mind wandered at first from thing to thing i "knew",  like thinking about how i have arranged for a very Fine buckling from Deanna to Kelly.  How yesterday Kelly talked long on the phone about how they have defined their goals for the Micro Ag Loan they are asking for.  How they will move soon to the 20 acres she owns in San Marcial.  How she told her Dream for that land.  That Barbara and Magic,  the Goats from here would free range under the watchful eyes of Gardian Livestock Dogs.  How she has a very wide and deep arroyo whose rim would be planted with fruit trees,  the rest of the land near the homestead planted with Lavender....she will learn to Keep Bees.  I thought of this.  I thought of Jude's Small Journey's post about Illustrative...Conceptual....what is Conceptual?  Is Judy Martin's work Conceptual?  I really don't know what Conceptual is.  Mind wandered in this back and forth.  Then mind went to how the Old Cowboy is waiting to die, really.  I have told him over and over that maybe he should not just wait because it might well be a long long time.  There's no way to know,  but i thought about all the things i think about dying because he is interested in it.  And it would be good if i try to know some about what i think.  All the while i am stitching these hills and depressions in this piece of cloth,  looking so long and so closely at the subtle variations of it,  thinking where i might put those invisible baste clusters and what DO they mean to me and really...

I got lost.  But didn't know it.  But suddenly something Called me into the moment and i had an extremely uhhhh,  disorienting few moments.  It was an altered state,  even a dissociative state.  When i stopped the needle and set it to rest,  well....hmmmm,  this is hard to tell,  but i really didn't know uhhh,  Anything.  I didn't know any thing to THINK.  I was  just  floating free.  Mind just

Floating,  unattached to anything....and i realized that i had no idea what i'd been thinking for the last while...how long i don't know...but there was no sense of it.  And i began looking around,  groping for some sense of grounding and everything looked equally as well, equal...nothing really of any more importance than anything else.  And it was disconcerting and i wondered what had happened,  and i began to do small things to "see if i could do them",  i wasn't sure.  Wasn't sure i could.  I  checked the email.  Put the roast vegetables into a bowl and into the fridge.  I fed the dogs.  Looked out all the windows,  looked at where i'll put the seedling tray tomorrow on the shelf...made self think of the process of that.  Everything seemed Functional.  But i still wasn't sure.  So i went Out Side

 

 

 

 

yes.  the Sky was there.  The Rim.  and yes.  i knew how to download the pics in Picasa.  OK.  yes.

Things hadn't changed.  I pet Tay and Chinche and went out to feed the Goats.  Stuff was the same.  I hooked up the yard hose and watered the raised beds,  dug in a little, and it was good.  OK.

But that sense of disorientation remains.  This Cloth is about that.  It's called Transmigration.  It's to help me understand that period of "time",  that "space" between the last exhale of this form before an Inhale of another.  This is what i am looking for.  And i found it.  In buddhist terms,  Tibetan buddhist,  it's called Bardo.  And the important thing is to be ready to let go.  To Fly Free as we so glibbly say.  Fly Free,  we say.  But it's a liminal state,  with a quality of ambiguity or dis orientation.  We have to let go.  We have to Fly Free.  

Whether someone believes in successive  "lives" or if they believe in going to Heaven or if they don't believe in anything at all,  no matter.  There is the moment of Letting Go.  Of setting yourself asail.  Of all that is familiar.  All you know that you know to the complete unknown.

So...

It has been a really really GREAT DAY.

 

 

 

necessity is the Mother of just going

this morning, before i went to work,  before i went to the Old Cowboy's for a phone conference with his financial planner in Denver,  or whatever she is called,  her name is Margaret.  And then to work an extra day at the WindMill house.  Worked every day this week, except yesterday,  but Every Day has been full to the brim.  I just Went.

 

 

Cloth has waited.  

Heart

Yesterday, this came.   Here, it's pinned to the Door Blanket on the Way Back Door.  A stunning Rust GOLDEN gift from Liz.  This is It's Glow on a very overcast day...i can't imagine what  might happen with SUN.....and i had it on the table to share with Marti today, just folded,  and already Knew what would happen and it DID

Marti immediately said...a table runner!  and i smiled and said yes,  for Dana,  and Marti went to it.  They had brought a bouquet for Equinox tomorrow and she said...Patricia's Basket,  yes...right there and Ta Da....There we were.    Not quite Dana,  but with just as much Heart.  There was one more photo taken of me and her husband Rich but i am too VAIN to post it here.  I look like, well, a very small thing,  looking up with mindless eyes,  a dried rain drop on my glasses,  (it was, yes, raining) that somehow seemed way more than a dried raindrop,  and my hair is plastered flat and well...i am too Vain.  Rich however looked Great in one of his Hawiian Shirts,  he is a Big man,  partly why i looked so small and skinny,  but not really,  anyway he looked and IS great,  if i knew how to crop pics i would, so you could see him,  but will just leave it to your imagination.

and then...Marti has some issues  with large dogs.  So there was some concern.  But i am so so GLAD to report that Both of them,  Tay and Marti were just so so FINE!  More reason for a Joyfull Heart.   The feed bags were filled with compost and loaded,  the Goats were kind enough to demonstrate the Migration Corridor.  All in All,  a very Best and Fine and Heart filled Day.  I feel very Happy, very Blessed.

 

 

 

Pandora's Shelves

O K.   DONE!     This round of Brightening and Lightening.  OK.   And it's ended like it always does,  having gone through the phase of  how there is SO Much that i SHOULD/COULD do to finally, the point where suddenly .....it's Enough.  And i'm done.  All the thoughts of possibilities just fall, weightlessly like the petals of the Old Apricot's  blossoms.  Drift onto the earth then disappear.  

The shelves,  well, really,  only one shelf,   and then the floor there.  This is where I crapped out.  The will to be uhhhhh  regular,  normal,  like most other people,  just fell away as if i never imagined it.  Poof as Jude says.  In a single instant it was just gone,  when the instant Before,  i was painting the wall,  or part of the wall, in the kitchen.   I love how that happens.

This little cave place here holds all manner of what remains from a LifeTime of having Stuff.  There's not a lot left.   But there's This Much.   Boxes of photographs, string, beads, tubes of oil paints,  2 sewing machines,  uh...well....stuff.   It's covered with a very nice layer of dust,  which here, is really a kind of sand.  Remembering that i live in Polvadera,  which is Spanish for Nothing But Dust.

the far end and i did Windex the mirror

it's like this all the time.  The What Was a rocking chair in front of that corner.  Holding what else? than yet another basket of scraps.

Something RARE.  THE table.  the only table here.  Which is never used as a table,  as in how people sit at one to eat their meals....as it will be used tomorrow for me and Marti and her husband.  We will eat together here.  and then,  as i just go,  the thread basket,  the needle/pin basket,  the scrap basket will all return and .........

I remain Totally In Love with my clean and sparkling kitchen window....looking out and looking out because it's Raining and how wonder FULL it is to look out at the Rain World through this CLEAR window.  

 

 

 

 

 

What really matters and why. But...wait...what does Matter mean?

bummer...the screen is what the Eye of the camera is insisting on seeing.  When i am looking,  with my own eye,  i  see an absolutely CLEAN kitchen window!!!!  It's ...well,  that word i don't much like, but it's .........Lovely.  This Clean Clean kitchen window, Inside and Out.  

i washed the ceiling in the kitchen with less success...it's Better,  but not great.  Kind of smeary unless the light is on and then you can't see the smearyness.   But still,  the Vibration is much much higher.  

 

 

What could be bright was made bright

and back and forth i went,  from this Cleaning ritual to this Fragment of a Human experience...just the eyes, now,  floating Free of the concerns of this plane.....but just barely floating Free...still in a state of not knowing which is called Bardo,  the Ultimate of Just Going  and i asked.  What really matters?   Tay has not been much ok with the focus on cleaning.  She wants me to be OutSide in the afternoon,  not walking around with a bottle of Windex.   When i sit to rest a moment, she puts her whole mouth around my boot,  not biting down,  but holding....trying to express something...which i hear, but continue on with wet rags and windex.

and i dreamed last night.  An extraordinary dream that i won't go into the details of but it was a very different dream than ever before 

 

 

either 7:43 p.m. or 6:43 p.m.

i have not been able to whole heartedly  "spring forward" .  The time here on this screen is one thing,  but the time elsewhere in the house is still the old time,  but eitherway,  it's almost dark.  It's Dusk.  Dusk.   and the door is still open.  Outside is right there,  on the porch,  at the door,  coming in and in is leaning Out.  Yes.

Looking again this morning.  What if i find a curved twig?  A Long one.  and then beside the simplicity of this,  there might dangle other things?

The Benevolence of these days has been,  uhhhh, well,  thick.  They are perfect.  Perfect being no challenge.  Just benevolence.  And i realized why that has had a feeling to it....just slight,  but felt none the less....

because March is usually the Month when we get Crazy here.  It's warm.  The SKY is sky blue,  the clouds Sail and sail so beauty fully,  but there is WIND.  The Crazy Wind.  Where you know to get anything done that NEEDs doing out side first thing in the morning because after that,  Wind will foil all efforts,  make you cry sometimes.  But,  now...no Wind.  not even wind.  Breeze,  yes.

Many of the blossoms on the Old Apricot are drying while some are still opening.  If there is no violent wind,  and if there is not some aberrant frost,  it very well might mean that this year there will be

Fruit

I'm trying to remember the last time and can't.  Years.  And usually,  it's because of WIND.

Mexican Elderberry.

 

Sadhana

literally translated in sanskrit to be Means to Accomplish Something.   

I finished watching and listening to the Blessing of Mortality Workshop that Michelle sent,  Ram Dass, Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski,  with Rameshwar Das.   Many times this thing of Sadhana came up as  Practice toward a Goal.  

As i've said,  every one of my days begins by calling the Old Cowboy to see if he answers the phone.  If he doesn't,  the plan is for me to drive in there to find out why.  So far, he has answered the phone.  This may go on for months or maybe even YEARS,   Who Knows,  but i agreed to it.  I am his partner for the Long Ride.  And watching and listening to these Souls speak of Life and Death,  i realized that this will become more and more the center of my Practice.  By Going with him,  i will take myself.   The learning will be our ride.  I don't remember which of them said it:  "welcome everything, push away nothing.  we don't need to like it, we just need to meet it."  I'll begin listening again and take notes this time.     

So i called him this morning and we had pretty much the same conversation we have every morning.  A report on his night and how difficult that was,  how many times he had to wake up and pee,  how hard that was to accomplish,  how his head is full of stuff,  (mucous),  and feels like a base drum,  how hard the coughing is,  the breath less ness of that.  Then into whatever it is he is dwelling on,  still the Money thing.  Then we drift into me saying well,  if we could stop dwelling on the Money thing, maybe we could feel free enough to use his new wheel chair to take a walk around the block.  He doesn't know.  That sounds like "dangerous territory" to him.  And at the end of all the Usual this morning,  after listening to Ram Dass,  Joan and Frank,  i just took a breath and was 

silent

didn't say  "well, OK,  talk to you later"     Was just quiet.

and he started up telling me how he tries to get up early enough on Sunday mornings to see the

"colored guy" on TV

who goes all kinds of places.  That today,  he took him to all kinds of beautiful places where no one lives any more.  And then to a place where they have Alpacas...he didn't know the word,  by context we figured out Alpacas,  and how they showed all the really beautiful things they made from their wool.  He was animated,  telling me this.  It was quite wonder Full, really,  that he had something to tell me that was beautiful.

So this is my Goal.  The Goal of the Sadhana.  To be more and more OPEN.  To Let what comes, Come.  Open to it.  To Welcome everything.   and today,  to understand that it takes time for Everything to appear.

i like looking at it from a distance.  Get more of a sense of things spinning Off

 

couldn't get the color True...but good enough.   I stitched the "kite" down...Invisible Baste,  Jude Hill.   I need to take it on and off the wall.  And forwhateverreason,  these initial scraps need to stay in place.  There will be more.  But these created the Beginning and need to be as is.

 

 

 

company

is coming.  Setting my house in order.   First, the Living Room.  And,  in sisterhood with Dana of ravenandsparrow.typepad.com,  i am taking advantage of the moment to be SURE that all these things that i am dusting  BRING a FEELING of JOY.  

Taken down from the Treasure Shelf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this basket, squashed into the wall at the far end of the futon couch,  Untouched.  Don't want to deal with it today.  I KNOW there is not joy here.  Later.

 

 

 

 

 

My grandson,  the one who is floundering,  made this for me in Middle School.

 

 

It took 2  1/2  hours to clean this shelf and this corner.   I continued on and finished the whole room,  or,  end of the house.   Vacuumed the walls,  the floors,  the books.  Curtain rods.  Sucked up whole Universes of cobwebs behind the shelves and draped from here to there on the ceiling and walls.  

I love it.  LOVE.  It.  Evening Sun shines through and as i've said before,  the Vibrational level is HIGH and Elegant.  I love it when it's like this.  But i also rarely do it.  Given an option for Cloth or OutSide,  it always remains unchosen.   Except when company is coming.  In this way,  I AM my mother's daughter.

 

 

 

a LifeTime

 

an abalone morning

 

Evening

In my other life,  long ago,  i was a Psych Tech at the University of Michigan.  For 17 years.  Where i learned how to be a Human Being.  Then i taught myself to work with Spinal Cord Injured men.  Did that...Art Therapy.  Then i was part owner of a Book Store,  while giving workshops on Creativity.  Then i Ran Away to New Mexico where i did many things.  Worked on an assembly line in a warehouse,  did Home Care for Terminal people,  worked at a Prison with Children and Families,  worked for a woman who made Fairy Godmother dolls,  did Landscape work,  and HouseCleaning.  All the while doing some form of personal Art.   I wanted to become a Writer.  

Today i went back to Peggy's house.  I had quit Cleaning for her when i began getting Social Security.  I quit most of my cleaning jobs.   She was sad.  Why? she wanted to know.  Because i don't want to anymore, i said.   I wanted to become even more Free.  HouseCleaning, in New Mexico, is the most income for the least amount of time if you find the right "pool" of people to clean for.  Here,  where i ended up,  that pool is,  with the exception of the Old Cowboy,  people who work at the college,  New Mexico Mining and Technology.  They are ALL,  without exception,  people from SomeWhere Else.  All of them are couples with advanced degrees and interestingly enough, no children.  All of them have animals.  All of them hold their Place in great Love.   Peggy is the mother of one of those couples,  who i also cleaned for,  from Boston.  She has her own very excellent home that they built for her on their property when she moved here.  Peggy was 90 this year.  She and her son and daughter in law are disciples  of Ishwar,  a Living Master of the Sant Mat Tradition.  For all the years i worked for her,  she hoped that i would come to love Sant Mat.  Come to love Ishwar.  I didn't,  but she loved me anyway.  So,  it's been some years since i cleaned her beautiful home and as i did again today,  because she cannot find anyone,  me agreeing to once a month,  i had the opportunity to be aware of how i've changed in the last years.  And it's true.  i've softened.    My edges have worn away.  It was quite wonderful,  really,  to be there and experience her as 90 instead of 83 years old,  to let her ask me off and on to do things she can no longer do, like empty the cat litter over the back fence.   and when it was done,  she fed me one of her just so Great squash qeusidillas  and we sat together,  noticing the Wind.   She is a Gardner.  Used to grow vegetables and take them to the Farmer's Market,  selling out each time.  She still Grows,  but on such a small scale,  for herself,  to give.  She wears beautiful earrings and great outfits of long skirts,  T shirts and sweaters.  Knee high socks and tennis shoes.  She has had both knees replaced,  one twice, and a hip replacement.  She is pretty much deaf.   She begins every single day with a two hour meditation. I took her half of the Paneer.  She's a great cook.  Vegan.

So What's this got to do with Anything????   Well,  it has very much to do with this Cloth.  LifeSpan.

 

 

How i am Living Here.  With Goats.  With an old cat and an old dog.  With a NEW dog and sometimes feeling a little overwhelmed by the future of the Old Cowboy,  but still,  saying OK to Peggy.  She says it's Karma.  Nothing more and nothing less.  And on that,  i think i have to agree.

 

 

 

 

Spontaneous

Care Full y  lifted this fragmented being off the ground cloth and It rests in the basket for now

THE BASKET...the very Wonder Full work of Patricia Spangler of  followingthread.wordpress.com  Her last post shows us Many and also two Cloths in process.  ALL so Fine.

added the middle layer of harem cloth and invisible basted to the back of muslin that is stabilized  on the hoop,  leaving all the Movement of the top Ground.  (Deb Lacativa)

began by split backstitch,  Jude Hill,  up the first shadowed uhhhh, depression.  Just began...to see how it felt.  But then....

but then, suddenly,  the thought to just very densely invisible baste the adjoining shadow area.  For any hope at all of seeing it,  double click.   This is with thread that closely matches the ground.

and then, just to the left,  a small area with a Very Pale GreyBlue.  Here i got Daring.  many invisible stitches, but also some that are just barely visible....   Again,  double click.     I LOVE THIS!!!!!!  and it Might work...many many many more stitches are needed to really be able to see if they can create what i see in my Mind.    And IF i do decide it works,  it will take close to Forever to accomplish, but still....i really want to do this.  The "singleness"  of each oh so tiny stitch,  up/through,   down/through is telling me something about the Story here.  Moments of a LifeTime.  Tiny.  Barely discernable,  yet shaping the Whole.

on the Wall

 

 

Paneer.   The consistency is not quite right,  i added a little too much lemon juice,  but taste is Excellent.  This from a gallon of goat milk from Dog Trainer Jan .  For anyone who has tried Goat Milk from the store,  PLEASE,  if you ever have an opportunity to get fresh raw  milk  locally,  Please try it.  It is the sweetest of the sweet pureness and joy.  It is JoyMilk.  

Maybe on the week~end.........  Paneer Chole