have always like those words...a
while
what is a
while? while while while
i'm taking a break for a while. as in gone. as in done.
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have always like those words...a
while
what is a
while? while while while
i'm taking a break for a while. as in gone. as in done.
Posted at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (36)
is Making, like Dreaming, done singularly? Or is there a Communal energy that calls things forth? That way of thinking that i have, that Cloth, some Cloth, not all, makes itself. Meaning .....what?....well....meaning that this Cloth, for instance was/is a part of an energy far larger than what my own imagination might have imagined. Actually, was unimagined entirely. I had no forethought at any step of the way except as i've said, to sew those two neutral squares onto the plain piece with the drawing of the face. The drawing which was done months ago and somehow remained atop all else on the Table. Just there. A presence. But given no meaning by me.
But then, Cynthia sent this...it's in her comment, but i need it here and i am sorry that i don't know how to change the spacing properly for a poem, so this will probably end up splayed out...but....
Hollow Bones
We locked up our wisdom into our bones And swallowed the keys They sank in our rivers of blood And we forgot the maps.
Because we had to forget the mysteries To keep them safe We wove our hair into brooms And swept over our paths And then burned the earth with our rage We didn't teach our children It was the only way to protect them, we thought
But in them we planted seeds, seeds and keys And told them stories and riddles and songs With no roots, just tangled threads That would take years to unwind
Just enough time
For the rains to fall again and put out the fires For the dams to break For the rivers to flood For the paths to be walked again For the soil to breathe
And as the old bones crumble Deep beneath the rubble We find we've always had the keys
Our stories and our maps Our paths are revealed to some And the seeds grow again The threads are unspun And woven again
Amara Bronwyn
I look at the tangle of thread that came to be the dream in this Cloth. Unimagined ahead, but Put as response.
And almost simultaneously, Julie of Threadingthedog.blogspot posted....and gave an image to help make her point which i swept with a hair broom into my heart... " why would a Syrian mother clutch a toddler in one hand and an aged father in the other and begin a walk through the Balkans in winter?" I asked her where she saw this image, could she tell me so i could go find it and she said
"in my head"
Posted at 04:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
to those who i no longer have connections with, ie from my old life, that somehow find it a good thing to have opinions about what i write or do not write here: i welcome responses of any kind HERE. or, second best, email. but preferably here. i write what i write because i have come to believe over the years that what is considered to be Unspeakable, ie Shameful because it somehow tarnishes a "normal" facade, becomes toxic to a society....emphasizing a sense of "people like me/people like them. Suffering is Common to all of us. ...or maybe not, maybe some people have no contact with suffering.... But most of us do. If not in our own families, then a friend, a neighbor, someone loved in their community. Honesty, Honest Love, is the antidote. and Telling is a part of that.
So, if you are out there reading and having feelings, please share them here. This place is a Loving Open Community of souls. Put it here.
Posted at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
along with a flyswatter, a penny, 2 buttons a couple books and a large envelope, this small tangle of threads has been on the wood chest that serves as the table for the morning chair. I have looked at it for days, i don't know how many. several. have noticed how under the lamplight before dawn, the threads have a sheen, a glow. This morning i watched it glow and picked it up and placed it here. Could not really see it in the dark but when morning light came, yes. This is it. This is the Dream.
it's stitched down.
Crows feet need to wait until the right moment when i can truly feel them.
a feather from heaven for Yvette
Posted at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
this is unnecessary and probably inappropriate to put here, but in the name of Transparency, i think, So What.
Spent the day at the Old Cowboy's house. It's Done. A modest amount in the center of the garage to go to the dump. A lot of cardboard boxes to smash and tie for recycle. Otherwise....except for his brand new lightweight transport wheelchair and his beloved wheeled walker thingy that go to Hospice this next week, everything is gone. Well, a small box of his slippershoes, his teeth. His glasses. I was going to bring them home today. They will be buried at the Raft here, but somehow, it was a Not Yet. So they wait there. I don't know for what.
Outside there is now a real estate sign with a "lock box" for the key to the house...to
show
Feelings.
So unless something changes, which it probably won't, his
Home
will be sold.
The money from that will go to my GrandDaughter Alyssia. For Whatever.
There is some other money. That will be divided between my daughter, son and floundering grandson.
Hopefully, there will be enough that i will buy that piece of property next door to me. My buffer against the world. We'll see.
And when it's over and Done, i can go back to being me. Whoever me is.
During the Dust Bowl, Old Cowboy's mother and father, Leroy and Flossie, set out from Clayton New Mexico for Colorado. They arrived at Steam Boat Springs and with the help of someone, bought land and a small herd of cattle. They were "bankrolled". They lived and raised that herd to a very very Good herd. They raised their only child, the Old Cowboy, who was from birth challenged by significant physical handicaps. But they taught him and he learned. Then Leroy just died one day, on the couch in their livingroom. Old Cowboy, in his 40's and his mother Flossie kept the ranch going. It wasn't easy. And when Flossie died, Old Cowboy, in his early 60's sold that ranch to become ski runs and condominiums. He floated down here to Socorro New Mexico and that's where our story began.
i know the whole of the story, the Before and then of course from when he got here because that's when i began to know him. I know how all his money and all his Stuff were Everything to him. And today, all that knowing was very much with me as we finished it all up.
Not long before he died, he had a space of total clarity when he said...." i will die, and no one will care." "it won't matter".
i so clearly remember this moment and how there was such an urge to say Stuff. To say nice stuff. But i didn't. I said some thing like.... people will care in their own way. and in a certain way, no. it won't matter. Our lives matter to Us. as we live them. this is when there is mattering. In the living of it. When that's done, then......
so i did what i did today. What comes of it comes of it. What he might think about what will come of it will be in question. He always said that i should take any money and buy a new car. Buy a new house. Get stuff. I have no need. So...i will pass it on. I will bankroll others. What they do with it in this day and age is for them to know. I talked to him about all this today. I know he listened.
Posted at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (43)
this morning the computer corner lamp looked like Mardi Gras.
and whatever the "bugs" are...cold/flu...they are still alive and well inside my body so i just drifted. Mostly, cleaned house.
took water out and went back and forth to the WhatEver. Just to be amazed.
and i read the interview that MO referenced and linked yesterday and i went off to look at her art,
Audrey Niffenegger
probably many of you might have read her book....Time Traveler's Wife.....
in the interview she said: "why make something that merely replicates reality when you can have reality. My own interest lies in things that are impossible in some way." ahhh. and eeeee. yes. impossible in some way...or maybe not. yes.
Posted at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
and then, the "sky" became just a cloudy grey.
am thinking about the words magical realism.
just at the end of the day i noticed this at the bottom of the front porch steps,
turn your head to the right and there it is right by the wooden box....?????? What IS it?
got my finger wet with spit and rubbed off the dirt....
I have No Idea. What it looks most like is some very old piece of linoleum???
but it's Beauty FULL, the colors, the wildness of it's design, and there's ways to deal with things....i could pick it out of the earth with my finger or a stick, i could cover it back up, make it hidden again as it must have been for a long long time, or i can imagine things about it. Maybe tomorrow i'll pour a little water on it and take another clearer pic.
But this is actually a good example of what i was trying to think about all day...magical realism....how i have somehow for whatever reason in the last years, lost my relationship with that. Did i lose my Heart for it?, My Eye for it?, was it too hard to communicate so i just stopped trying? Have i
"settled" ? Because there's been too much other Stuff?
Posted at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)
found out today what that Off feeling was yesterday (and today some too, still) the conversation in the grocery line etc was informative. Everyone who has/had that "cold" is taking a long time to get over it. It leaves a flu like residue. So ok...
a lot of small stitching that doesn't show and in between a lot of looking at the fragments. I just love the plain grey square with the two dots of red/orange thread. This that came from Jude a long time ago in a batch of scraps she sent. It's really beyond simple, but so perfect here. How it's surfaced now and then for so long, but suddenly, this, it's Perfect Place. and then, that rectangle of white with the black and blue marks that all look black really unless magnified like this....it's not much, but where it is, it's Everything. Spent a lot of time just Looking. Feeling why they feel so good. Letting there not be an answer, just the feeling. So i guess, Looking and Feeling.
and then, Goats.
we might remember how Great Caregiver Travis, his woman Rebecca and the child Zarek want me to "make them some Goats". I said ok, when it's time, if they still wanted some. Well....it's time. November is the month. 5 month pregnancy and kidding in April. So these months thinking and a lot of conversation off and on with Dog Trainer/Goat person Jan about WHO to breed, WHY, and today the day arrived....Here we have Cinderella. Not the most flashy Goat, marking wise, and her scurs are unattractive, but she is a WonderFULL young thing, so gentle and Willing and doesn't mind anything about her being touched...teats for instance.....BIG PLUS.....she is the offspring of Ginger and Gideon. She's 3 and never been bred.
She'd like to be. As you can see in the pic, she is expressing her interest. LOUD and in her very own odd gutteral/human kind of sound. She started first thing this morning at the little gate that faces the buck yards. Kept it up all day. And yes, upon looking, her ....what would you like me to call it... her twat is drippy. Okey Dokey. So i have tonight to decide.
Part of me does NOT want to breed any of them. Part of me wants a year of Adding Nothing. A year to just experience things without any thing but the Minimum.
Part of me wants to give kids to Travis and Rebecca and end up with milking does and make some cheese again which is such a DEEPLY satisfying thing. I still really have no clue about how life is going to feel without the Old Cowboy, it's too soon. Maybe there will be a LOT of room for milking.
They come into heat every month. So it's not like this is IT, but it's the most perfect time for kidding and beginning milking after weaning. Next month would be ok too, but one more month to think about it won't make any difference i'm thinking. I either do or i don't. Maybe i can dream an answer.
so that's Cinderella at the end of the picnic table. Her mother Ginger on the table. Under the table at the far end is Mercy with the crescent moon on her forehead. The second one i would breed. Because i Love her. And she loves me.
In the foreground is Karma. Well not the fore fore ground, but in front of Cinderella. Karma is the MOST BEAUTY FULL GOAT. I would LOVE to breed her. She so far does NOT allow touching. This can change with kidding. During delivery, they all allow contact and allow contact because of the kids. Just because she hasn't, doesn't mean she might not become the greatest milking Goat. so, eeeee.
And back to the beginning. Wishing for nothing but looking. And back to the words of Nisargadatta Maharaj, Do Not Add.
I add. Over and Over, I add.
Posted at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Posted at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
stitching down the very small fragments, slow. Very slow. And reminding self that nothing here is for sure yet. Just Looking.
a slip of the mouse in Picasa. Interesting.
While working, i listened to the most recent interview at On Being...with Ann Hamilton. It's wonderFULL and rich with so so much, i listened twice and i will listen again. and could have written down a zillion things, but i did write how she refers to Time as a process, as a material. how do you let things take the time they actually need.
in and Out, the afternoon which comes so soon and very suddenly becomes evening, i looked and pulled things around, thinking something, but not really being able to see what the something was/is
so...like this. Maybe i will see what this feels like? What it might mean? Pulling stuff around, changing it, i was thinking about it coming into American Holiday season, Thanksgiving, first and of course there are thoughts about one's family of origin and i thought about my mother, how every single phone conversation included two questions. Did you go to church this Sunday? Why aren't you Here? For years. And i thought ok, i'll make an installation here, that is just in front of the Raft, that would Include the Raft and also that chair to the left that holds the Mirror and how maybe it can be some kind of church. Like a Church for Crows? It can take all winter. it can take the time it needs. I think so.
Posted at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)