windthread

accompanied by Spirits

"Creativity is sacred,

 and it is not sacred.

What we make matters enormously,

 and it doesn't matter at all.

   We toil alone, and we are

       accompanied by spirits."

Elizabeth Gilbert   Big Magic   Creative Living Beyond Fear  

 

What drew me to get the book was reading something about how she talked of Curiosity.....because it was syncronicity with my own  renewed preoccupation with Curiosity.   I followed the thread.   And found a friend.  It's not a magnificant book,  but it is like having a Friend.  a Friend who is similar to yourself and who can wander through thought and love and just Enjoy the wandering...Like my most loved friend Marjorie Burke Price,  that i have been missing so much,  she is like her...having no destination,  just the joy of wondering.

There are many things in this book that will stay with me.   They will be perceived differently by those that read.    But things that will stay with me.  For instance...if something Shows UP,  welcome it.  Who knows?

 

The Old Cowboy's futon frame has been in the back of his (mine) truck for maybe a week or more.  It's exactly like this one except it works easy when you go to make it flat.  So i was going to change it out.  Take this one to the Thrift Shop.  Needs some nuts and bolts or something and anyway,  it depended on me finding someone to move this one Out and OCB's In and i was malingering.   It's too long a story to tell for "nothing",  but he called this morning saying that he and Alan would come after work and do the thing.  After work means 5:30.  In the dark and they would need to come through the Way Back gate that is sensitive in daylight let alone DARK.  And would mean that i would need to do many small things to make this ok to happen like make a fake Goat gate in order not to lose Goats in the process and move almost everything around in the house so it could go smoothly and i said ok.  But then

as morning progressed,  i thought....This is NOT how i had wanted to spend this day.  So i checked out the present futon frame and lo and behold i got it to work just ok enough to call him and CANCEL the mess of moving it.  And suddenly in the midst of that i thought of the old cover i made in the beginning of the Jude stuff which has been in a basket ,  the BOTTOM of a basket in the bedroom for a few years.

 

 

this is not at all the true color...this kind of greybrown strip,  i don't know how it happened this way in the pic but i really really LIKE it...

and what's the Deal with this denim futon cover?  But then i though about how i'd been thinking about Julie's question.   Did i think about going to California to be with them there or something and i responded that i thought i "should"

But i don't want to.  Yet.  I don't want to.  But what if they came here?  Alyssia had said that she wanted the kids to "know" me.  Well....could they "know me" if they came here?  And if instead of the oh so light grey blue futon cover,  there was this denim one that could take the wear and tear.....?

What if the kids,  Julian 6 and Destiney 7 came here?   Say for a month of their summer vacation?  What if we made a pond out where the Raft is?  With plastic and then stone and cement?  What if we made a Navajo shade house over where the Old Cowboy's lawn furniture is?  Would that keep us busy enough?  For a Month?

 

Creativity

i woke this morning to find this

 

Creativity has so many forms,  each form so much nuance.   Marti is a Master of Remembering.  Of Keeping.  Of Detail.   I appreciate this so deeply because it is how i am not.   This Beauty FULL Being of Light is her creation of small branches coming Back together to form a tree.  It took my breath away.

Gilbert says

"Creativity is sacred.  and it is not sacred.  What we make matters enormously,  and it doesn't matter at all.  We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits."

It is the eve of Solstice.  The eve of the 70th time this body has felt the love of this Earth.  70.  70 times.   I am finding this hard to take in.  

 

 

when does it Begin?

a difference

that thing about Scarcity/Abundance.  And here,  not about money,  goods,  but rather Time.    

the other day,  Sydney of Sydney and Jamie the Two Moms of Talula,  who all used to live up the road from me,  but now only Sydney,  Jamie lives in town,  Talula who is now 11 goes back and forth,  anyway, Sydney stopped by to bring me this gift

 

a shopping bag from World Market.  She got one for herself and one for me.  And invited me to her Solstice Celebration on Sunday (tonight) saying it's ok if you don't come but it would be nice if you did and as i always have,  when invited to her Celebrations,  i said ok,  maybe.  I think the last one i went to was maybe 4 or 5 years ago?,  it was the Martin Luther King,  Prayer Tie making Celebration with a wrestling workshop by her then newish lover Shelah.   She lives less than 5 minutes away.  But i don't go to stuff.  But they keep extending the invitations.  She really likes to cook for people.  Likes very much to have people come to her home.  I really love her and people she knows are always good and interesting people.  It's always very very nice.  But i don't go.

so for a couple days now i thought about it and today thought about it in terms of that concept of Scarcity and Abundance which is usually applied to money and goods.  But i was thinking about it in terms of 

Time

having to choose to "spend" time socializing with people  v.s.  being Home alone,   the Home alone always would win.  There was not enough time,  never enough time.  Any time there was must not be squandered,  must be held and savored as if it was the last piece of time ever.

somehow it was different.  Found self thinking...Why Not?

so though i ended up staying less than two hours (because it was just totally Enough socializing even with really great and interesting people) ,  i made scalloped potatoes and went.   And the real difference was that when i was there,  i was fully present.  I was not sitting at the edge of my chair, restlessly waiting for the first moment of polite escape.  I was There.  I was There in conversations,  There in eating the lamb stew and ayurvedic lentil dish,  There in the bourbon hot toddy,  the best corn bread i've had in a lifetime,  the dark chocolate with sea salt,   all the dogs,  those that live there and those that came as guests,  the kids.  The huge Christmas tree,  Bing Crosby singing.  I was

There.

and i am happy that i went.  And am happy that it provided the really first example of how things are different after the Old Cowboy Time.   Things are different.  There is Enough Time.   How BeautyFULL is This???   Enough Time.  There is Enough Time.

 

 

FATE has Arrived in California

he and his Mother.  

Light Candles,  on Solstice light bonfires.  Light everything you can think of to light that things can go just enough Ok for them to hang in. 

But he is there.  They, he and his mother are traveling toward some kind of home for them....to Alyssia's, to my daughter's.    This is going to be hard.  But he is there.  Small soul,  he is there.  Everyone is awaiting him.  

oh just Joy.  Just relief.  Just Going.  Everyone Just Going.

Big and Giant Love to all who hang around here and Thank YOU all for what you have given thus far.  It's not over.  Need all the good vibes that can be gathered.  Please Send.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

such a small day

both

early part of day was wrapping gifts to fill a big box to California and Denver.  THE comprehensive Pokemon encyclopedia,  a finally found musical twirling ballerina jewelry box with a nondescript skin color and BROWN hair (!!!!),  a FischerPrice keyboard,  headlamp flashlights for all,  little stuff from the dollar store...scented markers,  solar candles,  alphabet beads.  The drawing things for the grandson,  E. Gilbert book for Alyssia.   A wooden painted hand with milagros on the fingertips for Veronika, 19 yrs.  The children's T Nat  Hahn  4 stone meditation book,  The Quiet Place  book, Tango makes Three about the two dad penguins for the kids to share.  The line at the post office full of Good Will.  Done.  One more year.  There is no Christmas here for many years now and all the "adult" children are done with it,  but then,  those young ones....o welllllll,  those young ones.  So, ok.  and ok.

 

how is it,  really,  that Night becomes Dawn?  Close your eyes,  see it.  See it in your mind,  how it is,  what it is....so slight at first it almost isn't,  but then it moves and it Is.

 

the small high table from Old Cowboys...his mother Flossie found it at the dump and refinished it.  Alyssia insisted i bring it home,  i said i had no place for it.  It's next to the bed.  I clipped the little lamp to it but didn't plug the lamp in.  Just was there.  The last time i was there,  at OCB's,  i brought home his wall clock that he liked.  He had many things to say about the Chinese,  but for some reason,  this clock he found in some catalog,  it was in the kitchen,  over the sink.  I brought it home.  Battery.  and it makes a distinct sound as it marks the minutes.  Right now,  i like that sound when i wake and everything is completely dark.  Dit.  Dit.  Dit.,  etc.   

I woke at 2 something last night as is often the case in winter...to pee because i've gone to bed so early, and now too  because i hear Chinche stirring and need to carry her outside to pee.  I woke from a very active dream and was Given something.   Not ready to put it into words,  but i had to get up to write it down,  i knew i would lose it otherwise and i didn't want to get up to write it down,  too cold but i did because it was that important,  so have prepared now.

 

i hung the clock on a push pin and connected the lamp.  Ready.

If nothing else,  the Elizabeth Gilbert book,  Big Magic gives me this.  I am only on page 64 of 272 but this in itself is Enough.  Just this  from the part How Ideas Work:

" I believe that creative process is both magical and magic.  Because here is what i choose to believe about how creativity functions.

I believe that our planet is inhabited not only by animals and plants and bacteria and viruses,  but also by ideas.  Ideas are a disembodied energetic  life-form.  They are completely separate from us,  but capable of interacting with us....albeit  strangely.   Ideas have no material body,  but they do have consciousness,  and they most certainly have will.  Ideas are driven by a single impulse:   to be made manifest.  And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner.    It is only through a human's efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether  and into the realm of the actual.

     Therefore, ideas spend eternity swirling around us,  searching for available and willing human partners.  When an idea thinks it has found somebody...say you....who might be able to bring it into the world ,  the idea will pay you a visit.  It will try to get your attention.  Mostly,  you will not notice.  This is likely because you are so consumed by your own dramas, anxieties, distractions, insecurities, and duties  that you aren't receptive to inspiration.  You might miss the signals because you are watching TV,  or shopping,  or brooding over how angry you are at somebody,  or pondering your failures,  and mistakes,  or just generally being busy.   The ideas will try to wave you down  (perhaps for a few moments,  or perhaps for a few months,  or perhaps even for a few years)  but when it finally realizes  that you're oblivious to it's message,  it will move on to someone else.

But sometimes...rarely...but magnificently....there comes a day when you're open and relaxed enough to actually receive something.  Your defenses might slacken and your anxieties might ease,  and then magic can slip through.  The idea,  sensing your openness, will start to do its work on you.  It will send the Universal physical and emotional signals of inspiration (the chills up the arms,  the hair standing up on the back of the neck,  the nervous stomach,  the buzzy thoughts,   that feeling of falling into love or obsession).  The idea will organize coincidences  and portents to tumble across your path,  to keep your interest keen.  You will start to notice all sorts of signs pointing you toward the idea.  Everything you see and touch and do will remind you of the idea.  The idea will wake you up in the middle of the night and distract you from your everyday routine.  The idea will not leave you alone until it has your fullest attention.

And then,  in a quiet moment it will ask,  "Do you want to work with me?"  ......"

 

Again.  if nothing else from this book...THIS is enough.  I KNOW this.  And to read something that i know so intimately only Inside myself,  that i have never put words to,   is just beyond Grand.  So,  i Thank her,  Elizabeth Gilbert. So much.  so so Much.

 

 

 

 

 

the intensity, the density, the weave of a Winter Night

from the beginning,  through,  and toward Dawn,  the density,  intensity of the Night Hours are not the same.   Listening to distant dogs,  coyotes,  and in these days,  the owl.   They mark the hours.  My deep sleep and wakefulness mark the hours.  Winter.

 

as it ended, so it Begins

it's beginning,  finally,  to become a rhythm

 

what is given still to come  and the final figure that returns to Mother Night.   More Inktense.

 

 

 

work away + the 4th day of straightline WIND, constant, day and night, with "feels like temp in the 20's + Miscellaneousness =

just this.  Quietly.  Just here.

if at first you don't succeed,

after work decided to just try...see how it might go

 

too small.  hair too crazy

 

too small again.

 

but it's the great thing about thread.  Just take it Out and Try again.

 

a more clear pic of the Night Things