windthread

Barometric Pressure....the weight of air ~

all day,  it changed,  nothing to SEE,  but to feel and then the quality of Light

for the First time Ever,  the nuance of this piece of cloth was photographed by the camera AS IT IS.

it just hangs on the Wall.   Is always There.   Today,  oh,  today.

so....coming home from Work away,  i looked and felt the Impendingness.

not at anything in particular,  just whatever

 

 

stitched some more.  There is a Fierceness to the drawing that i haven't captured yet here.  I need to find a way.  So i looked and looked at the drawing....how IS IT? that there is a fierceness there????  How and Which lines Give that?????

And Just as Goats were beginning their Evening Grass Hay,  it 

came

the Storm.  HUGE raindrops,  the size it seemed of ping pong balls,  that sense that at any moment it could become Hail.  The Goats ran and hid.  Tay went into her "crate house",  Chinche quivered.  Tazmeena dug deeper into the comforter on the bed.  Birds became quiet.   STORM.  and i sat,  through it,  following the breath,  letting hail thoughts just go.  Breathing.  

Good Practice.

According to Accuweather,  there is 103 minutes of Storm left.  So...back Off the computer...Lightning.

 

 

Refuge

Refuge.  Why do i love this 

word

so much.  

all it's meanings from a Wildlife Sanctuary to the

Breath 

in meditation.

I KNOW that the Breath will be my Refuge from here on in.    Or,  here on Out.  I am completely sure of this.

Getting back from the Work Away,  i began threading the needle,  but soon got a phone call.  How amazing.  Best Nurse Cindy was calling in her halting speech to say that she was discharged from Rehab this morning and her two sisters and she were driving from there to Here,  to Socorro, to make a visit to the One who remains in the Alzheimer's Unit at the Old Folks Home.  She has been responsible for Ciele for years now...while she was also working there as a charge nurse.  Since her Crash,  her first Crash last August,  she hasn't been able to keep up that commitment and Ciele has just drifted.  But today they would visit,  actually,  APPEAR,  Cindy,  and  by this indicate that things are On Going.  And she said would i meet she and her two sisters,  one from Tennessee and the other from  Illinois at the Truck Stop...just to say HI and give a HUG.....

and i did.  This woman has been through the Fire.  One thing after another since that first crisis in August.  How many trips to the ER,  3 lengthy hospitalizations,  and there she was....at the Truck Stop,  two very tired sisters but Her....Her Energy and her SMILE was just HUGE.  The sisters had come expecting to "take her back"  with one of them....either one....but well...Best Nurse Cindy plans to 

Go Home.

Home.  Refuge., really.....  It is so many different things to All of Us,  the concept of Home.  To the Old Cowboy,  home is where his microwave is,  his dvd copier,  his kitchen table.  Best Nurse Cindy, it's her little piece of earth with her small small home she has worked on in so many ways for years now even tho she doesn't Own it,  it's where her ancient Turkey lives out back.  

and how Home CAN change on us sometimes out of the Blue.  So i think today how i want to work at Home being in the Breath.   The Breath is with us where ever we are.  To be Home in the Breath.

Breathing In  Breathing Out.  Being Home.

the hollyhocks are forming their blooms

bird cage captures bindweed or vice versa

 

Mexican Elderberry

Mallow

 

While moving the truck to position it to unload the Goat feed,  Tay jumped in.  Drivers side.  I got in and closed the door.  She was Startled but sat when asked to.   We went forward some and then back.  She sat.  Startled but thinking.  Taking it in.  I asked her to WAIT!  when i turned off the engine and sat a minute before opening my door.  WAIT!....hand up and flat toward her...and she did.  She waited until i said 

OK

and she jumped out and ran in circles because it had been so.....sooooo....so....Something to her

 

My Developmentally Appropriate Mother's Day

Mother's Day.  a Hallmark day.  And even tho i have OPINIONS about Hallmark days,  they are a part of my life since i was born, really,  so no matter the OPINIONS,  i am Imprinted.

and i debated all day about whether or not to put this here,  of course,  because i am me,  i am.

and as a Qualifier,  i want to say at the beginning that i am FINE.  I feel really GOOD and this is NOT a Sad telling,   it is just a True Telling and True Tellings set us  FREE.   If you were Here and we were sitting on the porch at the end of this day,  you would easily know this.  But because we are distances away and there are only these little black marks on the screen,  it might be in question...so,  Just to Say.

Without going into it,  because i really don't know what the IT is,  just to say,  Something is Amiss with me and my daughter.  I don't know what that is.  She does.  But she,  for whatever reason,  is not into sharing that.  So...i am here,  at my end,  not knowing.   And really,  having absolutely NO idea.  That Said.

Tho Mother's Day is really a fake day,  still....it's Mother's Day.  Whether we are mothers ourselves, we still HAD a mother.  There's no other way to have come to participate in this human drama.

This sets the scene.  You have to get born.

And then it goes from there.  OK.  What's important here?.  

I have two issues.  Two.  Two for sure,  that i work with in my life.   There are some more secondary ones,  but really,  just the Two.  and they are Both about Mothering.  

The other place i live is over at Spirit Cloth,  Jude's World.  and she talked today about how a woman is like a basket.  You can go there to see what she says.  And i think.

I have had this URGE to make this cloth

and i look at this and think how prescientient      this urge was.  and really,  how all the Cloth Making is. 

last evening i received an Email from Wendy Golden Levitt about the dog cloth i'd sent

 

and then,  the Night Work which might be called Dreams.   Dreams.  What ARE they?

i wake,  probably because i need to pee and i get up and then i go back and lay there,  waiting to fall asleep again and i wait and drift and wait and drift and often,  ALL the STUFF that i am not sure about Arises.   It's not Fun,  the Stuff.  It is the Stuff that i am Unsure about,  Stuff i have Questions about,  it all is There,  sitting,  waiting,

it's all Stuff that i can't change now.  of the Past and i can't change it....other than to continue to be willing to Talk about It??????

anyway...

in the Email from Wendy,  she offers this.  From her Mentor and good Friend,  Marion Woodman.  A   Zen Koan:

"Ride your horse along the edge of the sword,

Hide yourself in the middle of the flames.

Blossoms of the fruit tree will bloom in the fire,

The Sun rises in the evening."

so and then the Information that rises in the night.    Mothering.

Lying there,  wondering,  suddenly there is this thought!   As with Goats,  it was a Successful Breeding!   How it came out so WELL for him,  their father.  How they are FINE children.  How his life now is so GOOD from this breeding.    He has his good life,  his children,  his friends,  his present wife.  How it all came out so GOOD for him.   And what this means for me is that i can totally LET GO of any sense of .....guilt.....for Leaving.   He has this.   Completely.  and i can just uhhhh,  I can just well...be the uhhh,  Thing that i AM.  It is All just very much OK.  

 

 

 

Rhythm

so,  i gave it the name of Boundaries and Self Discipline.  Close enough.  and what i am being able to Find is a rhythm.  It's good,  two days now.  It FEELS very good.   Everyone's comments also were all so useful to getting Clear about the commotion...that i intellectually Know is not outer Imposed, but Inner.  So OK.   The most important thing is that i created boundaries of  Time Spaces...when i was working on the Rock Rooms,  it occured to me that i might make some Time Rooms.  So i did.  The agreement with self is to be OutSide at 8:30 a.m.   no list making for What i will Do,  but just to be Out.  Once Out,  things just flow.  There is that altered state of Doing,  one thing after another moving some from thing to thing,  it doesn't matter at all.  ALL of it needs doing,  so ALL of it is good.  And to agree with self that till noon is enough.   So, noon,  IN.  Cloth Time.  till 5.  Then, back Out till dusk.  As the days lengthen this will leave even more time.  Coming in at Noon will give a break for the heat of the day.   Yesterday and Today felt really just Fine.   Things got planted and mulched.  The kochia was worked on and heavy mulch in some areas with the bales of sunflower stalks that are scrap.  Tays small dug holes filled in and 3 new tomato cages built. 

I know these details are dull,  but  need to be here to Mark the Happenings for this May.  

This.  Far enough to get a feeling for it.  The pieces on the bottom might not stay at all...i am just liking to pin things there and look at the contradictions.   The two pieces at the top Might stay.  I think they are enough to signify ...SKY.    And THIS felt really good.  

So,  a Rhythm.  I needed a Rhythm.  OK.

Happiness.....what might have been an unwanted something else is NOT.  It IS a shoot of the Native Plum for sure!!!!   YES!!!!!  So...all four made it.   This one so small in comparison,  but because it came up this way,  it will be Strong.  Am so happy about it i almost feel like giving it a Name.

figured out where i can plant these carrots.  I don't usually do carrots,  but in response to really good marketing in the Seeds of Change Catalog,  i bought it.  Dragon Carrots.  The photograph in the catalog..more purple and orange...and the words...the words were the Hook: " A strikingly beautiful and refined carrot with deep reddish purple skin, orange interior,  and yellow core that looks great sliced up and arranged on the plate or shredded into salads.  The complex, slightly spicy and sweet flavor is especially good cooked or roasted."  Roasted carrots are where it's at.  So, i'll make a row in the compost bed.  somewhere along the long side where they will be safe from the dogs until they actually are established.  Plan.  ok.

and a Complete Surprise....blooms on the just so new Honeysuckle.  It never would have occured to me to look,  but when giving water...there they were waving in the WIND...and their SCENT...  for the Bees.

so today,  i lived with Ease.  

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR EXCELLENT THOUGHTS 

 

OK. It's what we DO that Keeps us

Accuweather didn't mention Wind.  Didn't even mention ....breezy....well,  ok and it was WINDy.  But i DID get OUTSIDE by 8:30 and Begin this very precious day as Mary Oliver would say.  I got OUT.

 

it started by just looking.  Looked a long time at how the purple silk looks in the old young dead New Mexico Olive.

 

brought more of the coyote sticks from the Way back and just layed them in the fence so they slant over the planting places.  This for Tay.  She hasn't been DIGGING here, though she might since I did today,  but she has been uh,  well, to use the most expedient word, shitting here.  They,  both she and Chinche like to do that on dry scrap stuff.  So this has been perfect for Tay.  Maybe as if i had layed all the dry scrap mulch here for just her purpose?  How could she know.   So the long sticks over the planted places might give her the clue that she should keep out?

small Pepper start.  HOPE.

and the Yerba Mansa.  Surrounded by the landscape pots to achieve a protected place (from Tay)

 

 

the Calendula, Fennel, Parsley and the last Chocolate Flower into what was the Child Buddha garden.  WIND  made them limp.  but maybe they can recover.  Nothing to do but watch.

and

CLOTH.   o CLOTH.   invisible stitch and found self choosing the B side as the A.  ok.  Wanted the soft soft linen on the Face Side.  ok.   Then...wondering,  i just put scraps at hand here,  just to FEEL something...none of them might Stay,  but they gave a Sense of how it could be and that was enough.  It was Strong and it Oriented me.   Cloth.

Tay NEEDED this day,  as did Tazmeena.  They have Feelings about when i am "gone" for long times whether it is truly gone physically,  or just gone from being Present in this Place.  When i called the Old Cowboy this morning for his "are you still alive?" call,  he was,  and he complained about how the new raised toilet seat was too high.  He talked some about how we needed to send those checks to IRS and N Mex Taxation and Revenue yesterday,  he talked about how he was glad to have gotten the water temp in the shower nozzel corrected even if it cost an arm and a leg to the plumber and how it costs an arm and a leg to pay our beloved Travis to give him a shower and lather him with lotion and ....what was ....I .....doing?
said I was working OutSide.

He said well,  was i coming into town later?  I said why and he:  I'm bored.  All the excitement of the Hospice,  and now, nothing today.

So,  there is that Softness from when Tana listened.  But then too and very equally,  is how he is so incapable of Imagining that other people might have Lives.  He has always been this way.  One of those people who will say..."well,  when you got nothin to do".....

There has Never been,  Never,  a day that i had Nothin to Do.  Never.

how to reconcile that with people?

 

the New Normal...and so, Boundaries and Self Discipline

i had gotten this far, this morning,  and was Happy.  I  looked and looked and chose the cloth for the Back,  the Other Side and washed it in the sink,  hung it to dry in the beauty full SUN and WIND.  then the phone rang.   No good use to putting the details, but a letter from the IRS and the old cowboy was beside himself.   So

yet another day

Not a Whole day,  but the complete middle of the day which because of how i am,  knocks me off balance in my Own World.   

So,  this evening,  i am thinking of a New Normal.  I know that many of Us have reason for this same need.  New Normals.  Different Normals.   the desire for a Normal.  the desire for some kind of rhythm  in how the days go.  and as Salzberg puts it...to live with ease.

so i am going to need to Shift.   How much yet and how,  i don't know.  But for sure i am.  And for sure,   i need Cloth.  

so I will need to set new boundaries.  and i will need to find a new Self Discipline.  I love floating through days.   Can i keep Some Days to float through?    Maybe...    Maybe not.   But it's what i am looking closely at right now.  How can i DO this and KEEP my SELF inside it.  Ok.

there are MANY things like this that need to get Done.  This pic is from the Back Door...out into the Way Back ,  looking at the Oasis there where the young Russian Olive is extending her branches and are tantalizing for the Goats.   Yesterday before i left,  they were standing on the fencing,  seeing if they could possibly reach in far enough to nibble the leaves.  So what to do?, if you don't have time to trim the branches?...  Put a laundry basket with a good sized rock in it to block that particular part of the fencing.  It will work for a while,  but not long.  Need to go in there and trim branches.  TIME.   Everything is about TIME.  Life is nothing but, Time.  I work to understand this in a Best way,  how Life is Time.  How Life is days.  Days strung together.   What this means.

the Feather Grass is NEW each season.   it repeats itsSelf each season,  but measures Time only season unto season.   I am looking at that.  Season unto Season.

RE membering Putting back together

so yet one more day of the Old Cowboy.  This one,  with the Hospice medical social worker Tana.  Who came and sat down at the table with No Agenda.  None.  She was simply there to 

receive.

and for three hours she did.   What is the Beauty here?.   That she Listened.  She listened care FULL y  and asked about what she thought she  was hearing.   He told her his Whole Story in small vignettes.

I was so proud of him.  How he has learned to do that.  To skip the "John Wayne" stuff and as i would ask him,  "just tell me the picture in your head".   When they got to the part about his daughter,  the story slowed.  Came one sentence at a time.  and i went over to get her photograph from the cabinet.  Tana sat looking while the story was told.  and somewhere during it,  she turned the frame over and opened it,  moving the photograph,  looking.  Silently.  She asked for a little tape.  If we had a little tape.  Yes,  i got it and OCB asked what she was doing and she said the photograph had slid a little and she was centering it.  Soon after,  he went to the bathroom and she asked me if i had ever seen what was behind the photograph and i hadn't.  It was a handwritten letter to OCB's mother,  her grandmother,  telling her she was so excited to soon be seeing her.  She never made it.  Just days before her highschool graduation and before the anticipated trip to Colorado,  she was killed in a car accident in California.  OCB had not seen her in over 10 years since her mother took her and left.

Things like this.  If you take the Time,  they just come out.  Tana appeared to have all the Time in the World.   and OCB was able to go In to where those memories are and bring them forward.  Tell her.

It was extraordinarily Beauty FULL.  the time spent.  Watching silently as he brought forward everything that was important about himSelf.  Watching her listen.  Him always circling back around to how he has lived enough.  Wants to die a "natural death".  Her over and over telling him that this can happen.  That things can be just ok.

I am still very uhhh,  softened by all this.  it will absorb into me over the days.  it will become now MY memory.  As today will become Her memory.   We carry shared memory.

this morning before i left,  i looked for this.  It's in the beautyfull black notebook of Stuff.  It's a drawing of something i ReMembered seeing i don't remember where.   So it's not an original image,  but a remembered image.   I drew it in the beautyfull black notebook because i loved it.  for maybe 20-30 years.  I drew it there maybe 10 or so years ago?   An Old MemoryImage.

Jude,  over at Small Journeys,  Spirit Cloth blog,  is telling about 

holes.

the progression went from her talking about holes to me remembering a Cloth,  a very intense Magnificant Cloth that belong to someone i loved,  Dora,  who had the numbers of the concentration camp tatooed on her forearm,  who went to become a Tai Chi master,  collector of Cloth things.  I wrote about her before here somewhere long ago.  Dora.  She had a Cloth.   It had a rectangular hole in it.  What i remember is that it was a women's ceremonial robe of the Shango Ceremony...the Babalawo tribe,  Nigeria.  There is more to this Memory but this is enough right now.  It was,  coupled with Jude's work,  enough this morning to make me look for this drawing.

so.

i want to make a cloth of the drawing.  I want to use these pieces of fabric.  One,  some linen that Maria sent me.  It is VERY soft and of Undeterminate Color.  Then a piece of walnut dyed Old silk noile,  so so soft.  Then something that i dyed here,  again an old linen i think in Elderberry.  This is all i know right now.  But for Years i wanted to make a mask like this.  Now i will.  And as i looked today,  i see that the Eyes are Goat eyes.  the rectangular pupil.   How memories MOVE through time from person to person....until they are again,  Told anew.

 

LATER

 it's still light.....

go OUT

They are in the middle Place.  I am in the Way Back.  I call.  I call them in nonsense language, that is supposed to sound like Navajo

the language of this Land

they Think.  and decide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Her.  I love them.  Beyond any kind of Love i know

just today

it might be pretty   "nothing much"  here for a little while.   Today was spent with the Old Cowboy and the Hospice people.  It was his initial Intake Evaluation.  He was evaluated.  and I was evaluated.  Us.  WE were evaluated.   They came and were There and talked and listened and KNEW things about Us from what we said and did not say.   I told him when they were finally gone that they were not just looking at Him,  but they were looking at me.  Both of us.  They were looking.  To see who we are.  To see Where we are.  

and where we are,  me and him is a Grey Area in their words.  Somewhere Hospice is "going".  So we are in kind of a new space.   Not quite imminent,  but close.  Waiting for a crisis.  But the crisis is still in the hinterland.  We know it will come.  but we don't know any more about it  than that.  So,  we are just kind of in a Limbo.  OK.  

I go again tomorrow to meet again,  she was there a little while today,  to meet again with the medical social worker.  I'm not clear Why she is  coming again tomorrow,  but i'll be there.  Will find out.   I like her.   I am hoping she will be my ally in the Whatever Comes.  I am hoping she will act as a sounding board.  Tell me when i might be being too cavalier,  tell me when i need to change paths.  Old Cowboy and me are very used to eachother.  Used to how we do things.  Maybe we need to change some stuff?  She is the one who will be my ally.  And i talked with the Granddaughter who was driving on her way to her class in Sacramento about all this...it's what she is learning in her class work,  Social Work,  ...so i want to be very Clear to this woman about how i think and OPEN to her to mirror back to me 

i came home after being gone a long time and Tay was .....Tay was.....glad.  She had dug some holes because i was gone a long time.  It's her way of expressing herself.  Digging holes.   The Goats,  they were OK,  i was very close to on time.  But it's all

FELT

 

 

 

and i go to this strip of cloth on the wall,  to the "saddened" pieces of walnut dye,  to the small bits of copper wire to the Stuff and seek comfort.

 

 

 

I press my face.   I press my face into cloth.  I press my face into the face of Dog.  I press my face into Goat face.

I press my face.

 I say the words of Metta.  the meditation of loving kindness.

May i be safe.  May i be happy.  May i be healthy.  May i live with ease.

May you be safe.  May you be happy.  May you be healthy.  May you live with ease.

 

Breathing in.

 

 

 

Feel like i've been Away and today came back. It's nice. Nice to be Home

When i got back from work away,  the storms began.  Like Monsoon in May instead of July.  Black on the Rim and lightening, thunder,  then  after some short time,  Brilliant SUN.  Back and Forth.

as individual storm fronts approached,  the house was dark.  Still,   because i turned off the computer.  Quiet.  Quite WonderFull.   Full of Impending and not in my Head,  but Out There.  Was Good.

looked at and Touched cloth while cleaning up the Table.  Just lightly.  More Good.

 

 

 

to pass the time of Storms,  i looked through the two folders of print outs of well,  stuff.  All manner of print outs.  some just scraps,  one and two together.  Some go back to Jude's Magic Diaries.  Just looking.  And these are the ones that caught me.  I have absolutely NO idea.  The paper had gotten wet...and  the image distorted.  But i LOVE this.  VERY much.  How might i make it Happen?????  Maybe i can't.  But i want to try.  So that would be Next.  Clean the dye pots,  that table for them.  Plant Woad.  I need Woad.  I can get walnuts.   ok.

then this.  Last Thursdays local news....YES!,   Sevilleta i have written about before.  So close,  down the freeway just some.    Releasing a PAIR,  the female pregnant.  In the Gila Wilderness.  Yes.

and more storms are approaching the RIM.  so, for today,  just this.  But it feels really really Good.

 

Full Moon of May, a Love Moon for a putrid grammy

i don't know what to say here.   the end of this day  comes with a Gift that i did not  imagine.  I had thought to continue talking about Magdalena,  because Magdalena keeps trying.  Because Magdalena has strong and fierce spirit.  It is a town of less than 1,000 persons,  many   quite eccentric.  If you look on Wikipedia and then around,  it will tell you things.   How it WAS, very much,  and then now, isn't,  but keeps trying.   And as i write this,  i suddenly realize that this is not true at all.  Magdalena always WAS.   and really,  just IS.   In the beginning,  it belonged to Itself.  It was Earth.  Then,  it belonged to the First People,  then the Navajo and some Apache,  then,  to those who came,  the Spanish who took land and then the Anglos who took land and mined it.  But Magdalena has always been there.  I love Magdalena because all manner of people had Intention and some of it took root and a lot of it withered.  This continues today.  

So...ok.  This is where i need to be in this moment.  What takes root and continues,  through thick and thin,   what Withers.  Maybe doesn't DIE even,  though sometimes yes.  But maybe just withers like Iris Tubers do.  Wither and Wait.

OK.

So i just stayed Home today.  I didn't go back.  I just wanted to be here.  I began by changing all the Goat water bowls.  Then finished bringing the compost to the big raised bed

i put mulch that is grass hay that for whatever reason,  the Goats knew not to eat.  Something in it that is not good.  Had set it aside for just this purpose.  It's done.  in this rectangular bed,  two Key Hole  planting places according to Permaculture principles.  One kind of normal the other an odd skewed one.  But key holes nonetheless.  This took  most of the day.

in between,  while resting,  i squated and pulled bindweed and kochia,  carried it over to the Goat yards and threw it in.  I also saw  how this kind of Mallow is spreading this year.  Note the pokadot leaves.

I Gave water.  Slow.  No hurry.  Bliss.  Slow/no hurry

and then i came in,  toward the end of that to see 

that 

Alyssia

who is known as my Grand Daughter  had left a comment.  and she referenced Putrid Grammy.

so i'll tell you that story.

When the kids,  her and her younger brother used to come to stay with me for weekends,  we would

Cook.

they could think up something they wanted to make and we would go get the ingredients and make it.  Alyssia was not so much into the cooking.   Just kinda.  She was the mincer.  She had a mincing tool.  So she minced.  But her mind was always all over the place.  But her brother Jeffrey...he was into it.   One weekend i asked and he said....Salmon coquettes.....my eyebrows went up...huh?

but Salmon coquettes he said.  he was maybe 5?  6?  ok.  so we looked in the cookbook and went to the store and we did the thing,  with Alyssia mincing.  We  sauteed them so Care Full y and when they were golden we put them on the plate and Jeffrey stared at them and said

not for me.

huh?   "Not for me".  

Being the kind of grandmother i was,  i said   TASTE IT.  Just One Single Taste.  and he did and as he was prone to do,  it fell back on his plate.    He just opened his mouth and it fell back on his plate and i said in my most mean grandmother way....JEFFREY!....that is ......i was at a loss for words...JEFFREY!...that is ...is... Putrid!    And he looked at me and said...YOU are putrid!  You are a putrid grammy!   and so it was.  When the kids hooked me in to Facebook,  my password was Putrid Gramma.  We are an irreverent bunch.  

So

Pull it together.  Pull it all together.  What does it WEAVE?

i also put more rock rooms in the Diamond Bed.  Just after Alyssia's reply,  i went Out.  This is what the camera saw.  That's Ooona.  Looking.  Snowbunny's daughter.  The SUN was Beyond Bright.

So,  it's a May Moon.  A Love Moon.    and always will be now.  For All who come here,  who are my Family,  and now, too,  with Her who IS my family,  who is the Bloom to my root....i wish Us a Loving and Gentle May Full Moon.....