windthread

go make yourself a world

i used to say that to the grandkids when mid morning came,  breakfast finished,  restlessness rising...

GO!  Make yourself a world.

squatting and crawling around Out There today,  i remembered that.  so while i dug for the trees,  i washed the rocks and rearranged some,  moving earth with my hands....make yourself a world, grace, ok.

 

watered the old Child Buddha garden,  now the Cairn garden.  Looked.  here is where some of  Nancy Krampf's Canyon seeds will go...which?.......or maybe the woad?......

 

parsley, Just Going

 

chocolate flowers...two plants...have said Yes and settled in

 

 

one Vitex

 

i like this because my shadow looks like one of Jude's characters in patchwork

 

second Vitex.  I talked a lot with Tay about how she really needs to just look.  Which she has been,  looking a LOT...standing over...looking....the freshly dug soil interesting her,  a lot,  and i talk to her,  and we hope it comes out ok....

if it does and they take,  in a couple years it really will become a Wonderland.  BEES LOVE VITEX.

 

and in all the secret places....around rocks,  the in betweens,  these seeds of Black Hollyhock from Jill in Montague, California....i crawl on hands and knees with a kitchen fork...an eating fork,  scratching up the earth,  scattering seed.  Jill's seeds.

Go make a world i told the kids.  I told my kids that too.  

"they" say that we never veer from the self we were as a young child.  That what we loved then,  we always love,  whether or not we acknowledge that love in a life time....   I made worlds as a kid.  They were worlds that made sense to me.  Here i am,  making a world,  one that makes sense to me.

 

homage

this is going to be difficult to find words for,  so i'll start out easy.

 

 

 

so this is the drive to Magdalena and i am running Sonny,  the 1983 Toyota truck Hard,  we are maybe 10 ,  15  mph over the speed limit and i am snapping pics through the dirty windshield when something says...Hey, grace,  and i look in the rear view mirror to see the distant black and white shape of a NM state police car.  so that was the end of the pics.  he followed me the whole way.  

Danielle and i spent over 2 hours looking at how to hang the Cloths.  Interrupted a little with other people,  the phone,  but pretty much 2 hours.  A lot of conversation.  Quiet.  Nice.  really Good and Nice time spent.    I didn't take any pics,  because that wasn't what it was about.  Was about hanging the Cloths amidst the rest.  That was enough.  

it ended up different than originally envisioned the last time...3 are together on the vertical but 2 are on the other wall with the other art that i had said was...heavy.  Woven rugs,  paintings in Frames.

so here we come to what is hard to articulate.   

The Cloths ARE very different than anything else there.  They ARE 

light

in comparison....small and light

but seeing those two between things like wool woven rugs and cradle boards was startling to me.  yes.  they were small.  no "weight".  But.....What PRESENCE they had.  Presence.  what does that word  mean?  Presence.  

and this is what i want to make very clear.  

Jude,  Jude Hill  Spirit Cloth,  gave me the Great and Incredible Gift of learning that cloth,,, simple scraps of household cloth and recycled clothing can become whatever we might imagine it to become.  Before her,  i would have never,  in my wildest dreams, imagined that.  So FIRST...homage to Jude.

Then second,  homage to textiles...to stuff woven of threads,  dyed,  designed,  printed...TEXTILES the thing that we All have in common across this planet...textiles.  Textiles.  textiles.  To them....

 

 

thread

 

and to Kay Gould Caskey who was my first mentor,  unlocking the mystery of drawing.  

I pay homage.

It was Fine and Great and energizing.

 

 

 

 

easy day

salt cedar sticks for hanging the Cloths tomorrow.  I don't remember the exact space,  so will cut them there.

 

went to Mike and Thelma's to pick up the seedlings she got me from a small nursery in Albuquerque.  Eggplant,  Bell pepper and Yellow Hots.  They're strong and fine.

 

the Window Tomatoes NEEEEEEED to go out.  Wind or no Wind,  this weekend.

 

one of the shelling peas.  ALL of them have come UP.  ALL of them.   ALL of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  As soon as they get a little larger i'll bank them in with mulch,  see if i can keep them  cool enough,  wet enough to bear fruit.

 

and a precocious Green Bean,  wearing it's seed shell hat!

so much going on Out There but Wind is strong and makes pics hard.  But it's Going on,  really, Going on.

ADDENDUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

AND MORE YAY AND HOORAY FOR sUNNY rAY!!!!!   Another of Jan the dog trainer's does kidded,  here cleaning off a buckling and a doeling.   Oh jeez.  Be~Loved Sunny Ray.....now it's only the Sanaan X to go...sp re Sanaan   but oh well, 

 MORE ADDENDUM

 

and i see it in the window and go to the door to look

 

and there it IS.   That Sky.  so incredibly BLUE,  a Blue Blue Sky,  so Blue  and i give it to the Bell from yesterday,  one of the things i will give to the bell

 

Pea people, mirrors and words, a bell

the shelling peas are UP!   no pics today.  tomorrow.

Danielle wants a pic of me to put on the blurb that will go on the wall near the Cloths.  I worked on the words for that and they have been reduced to bare bones.  Just bones of words and i went out to see about that mirror in the chair by the Giant Sage and eeeee,  it had fallen in the wind,  the mirror Out of the frame,  lying in the Kochia  but unbroken

 

so i brought it all in and tied the mirror into the frame with copper wire

 

 

here it IS.  the bell.   This is IT.   This bell can be "moved" in such a way,  an easy way,  to make a single single sound.   It's just Been here,  with me for so long, like so many years,  just been here

today it has work

i need to do some work about all of it,  the waking in the night,  the wish to just sleep,  the flow of thoughts that come with the waking and i need to say that they are not "worries"...just Thoughts, just free floating thoughts that are welcome in the light of day,  but in the night...i don't need them.  I need sleep.   it's a habit,  waking to Entertain thoughts in the night.    So, this bell.  it has a beautiful true ring.

 

and this from Jan the dog trainer...a pic of Sunny Ray

how it is.  We exchange.  How we are different.  and we exchange,  none the less and this is a soft pic of him,  surprising from her,  he looks like a baby

 

 

that something to hang on to

the Thing i mentioned last night in the response to Jan's comment...the thing of Beauty,  the Thing

to hang on to...

I thought about that today,  what is it i mean by that,  and it's a hope for a way to make all the Risky Buziness easier to bear....i want an image,  a single image that will hold all that i know and work for in my heart,  so when i wake in the night,  i can call for that image and Hold it and let the rest just go.

Days are always just so ok and even fine,  it's that waking in the night.  The dreaming is so intense,  as it always has been but now changing to even more specific Problem Solving and i still would give anything for a night of 

just sleep

 

this is the bedroom wall that i Wake to...kind of close to the angle that i see when lying down, waking,

Those pics from a calendar some years ago,  the tapestry of Green Tara,  some years ago

maybe the image i want is in Plain Sight?  Maybe all i need to do is turn on the light and look....turn off the light and let it all go.

???

a temple door in Lhasa.  Not so much the door,  but the rags tied to it

 

this human Form,  that i Trust.

 

 a valley     someone walking   with a companion   a valley of Windhorse...Look at them all and how i am so the same as all who placed their "petitions" of stick and cloth for Wind to carry out into Infinity

 

and back Here,  in my small world of Earth,  i finished.  Everything is Done.   I looked closely at all 5 Cloths and did what needed doing and they are finished.  I stitched on the holding tabs for hanging on all of them.   Tomorrow i will go Out and clip twigs from the Salt Cedar that will be threaded through those tabs.  Ok.   Tomorrow i will only need to Write.  Words.  just write words.   just

write words.   

Which ones?

 

a Monday

began this last evening.  This morning added water to make it easier.  But today,  straightline 4o something mph WINDs  so...it waits till tomorrow.  For one of the Vitex.

 

and this....

after all the "work"  with trying to "get better"  at Goat stuff,  I look at this and realize that i am no better at all.  If this buck kid had been born here,  i would be deluding self with ways i might find someone who would want him as a potential herd sire,  i would be putting off castrating him,  wethering,  what a nice word for castration, but still and yes,  putting off castrating him until it would be a mute point and i would have yet one more BUCK Goat here and there's NO ROOM.

another case of Stand,  and Face what you know

Love from Place

after morning feed,  i went on to water the 3 new trees and then to the big pots where i'd planted the shelling peas around

 

 

 

 

letting the water run slow,  to not disturb the seeds that haven't come up yet

 

squatting and gazing,  the kind of gazing that isn't really seeing,  but just Taking Things In in a very soft focus way,  noticing how the early light of Sun made this branch of Light and.... and....suddenly i was realizing what i was gazing Around Near and At.....you probably can't really distinguish them,  but there are FOUR eruptions of leaves amidst the gentle debris,  and they are

Yerba Mansa!!!!!

I had moved the big pots to encircle that plant to try to keep it from Tay's travel  but it had looked like it didn't make it and all last summer a cucumber vine  in one of the pots had covered the ground there.  And here today....Yerba Mansa.  Growing.   Growing.      I'll need to wait until the peas come and are done,  then move the pots into a larger configuration,  giving the Yerba Mansa space,  more Sun light.  They  spread by root runner.  There will be more and if they go toward the Iris,  YES!  These are the kinds of things that for me,  life is For.  Trying.  a lot of times,  Not.  But some times,  YES and this is Joy.

 

OK.  7 Crows and 5 Lizards.  The right numbers.  Everything stitched except for just a few places,  but pretty much.   The Dreamer needs another strand of hair.  Yes and Ok.   

How it still looks angled on the left...?????...in the photograph,  but not to the eye?????

 

and not in this pic...at a distance....

This camera is still a mystery to me.  Things to learn.  In time.  I am grateful for this day.

AND THIS JUST NOW from Jan the dog trainer......

 

Sunny Ray's boy.   Look at him.  He could not be more beauty FULL....perfect,  his markings pure Elegance...Gideon's grandson.

Goats are heart Makers and heart breakers.  Bucklings have no Use.  But i sit and look at this and i can barely stand it.  This little strong and fierce life form.

 

Bleary but Grateful

i woke this morning to an Email from Jan the Dog Trainer.  When she got back from Albuquerque last eve she noticed something different...and in her Doe Yard....another Goat,  a tiny one!!!!  One of her young does,  10 mos. old,  there are two,  from TenZen last year,  one of her young, too young does,  had a kid!  NOT the one she had seen sneaking  into Sunny Ray's pen,  but the Other One.   !!!!!    It's a little buckling...which is not so great as if it were a doeling,  but still,  for her a good thing because she can now,  well, soon,  milk this one.  For me it is Grand!  Sunny Ray is "a proven buck"!!!  After all that initial ya ya that he seemed to be sterile,  NO!  HE IS GOOD!  

 

and then i spent the next 7 and 1/2 hours STRAiGHT stitching the borders.   It doesn't show here much at all,  but it's is there...to the eye...all accept for the bottom and i am not sure if i want that "closed in".  Will wait till tomorrow and see how it feels. 
This border thing,  it's as much as i will ever get to "a finished border",  i think.  I can't bear to close the edges in by turning them.  So this is a compromise.  It seems to work.  so OK.

 

When i went to bring the 3 new tree/bushes over near the water to a sheltered place,  i saw this and pulled it.  What IS it?  Instinctively i know it's not good for Goats,  but What IS it?  And how had i not seen it before????....it's BIG

 

have sent an email with pic to Bill.  He will know.  And even if it isn't good for Goats,  i have to Admire it...LOOK at the size of the seeds....how amazing it is

Tomorrow i need to finish this Cloth.  In order to be ready for the Art Thing in Magdalena.  Which part of me feels good about and part does not.  Those 7 1/2 hours....they TAKE.

Tay ran tonight when i was out feeding and giving water,  she RAN hard and fast and so close that sometimes she rammed me or ran over my feet.  She has feelings.  When i fed the Goats tonight,  the doe Goats also rammed close....not hard,  as in to do harm,  but close to it.  Tho they don't need me to be doing anything in particular WITH THEM during a day,  they somehow just need me to be Out There...moving around,  just going.   Things need the just goingness.  and if it isn't happening,  they express themselves

 

 

 

 

 

They say it's Earth Day

the google logo melting...how many of us in this country really care.....?

I spent most of the day stitching.  Nothing much to see because it was Invisible Stitch...the sky, which is almost finished.  

 

the patterned canyon and then the foothills tentatively stitched.  And then...the dark mouth of the Arroyo where the lizards are coming from.  A strand and a half of hair.  More hair needed to show the work of Wind.  Slow Cloth.

In between i went Out and sat,  closing my eyes and Visualizing this Place first,  then moving out slowly,  i went toward the east of this continent because that's the direction i came from, to the ocean then and i Visualized all the places i know about that are divided by this body of water.   I Visualized everyone who writes here and at Jude's,  them,  in their Places.  I did Meta.

 

Thelma of Mike and Thelma the now defunct Native Plant Nursery,  brought me three one gallon pot trees.  2 Vitex or Chaste Trees and a third which they think is a pear.  I had asked a while back if they had any trees or large bush beings left.   At the time they said no,  but here they are today.  The pear....i'm not sure about.  I'll plant it but i will choose to do nothing that people do to save fruit from insects.  The two Vitex... i have one out in the Middle Oasis.  They grow well,  require next to nothing and bloom all summer if you clip off the dried blooms...Purple...for Prince i'm thinking....and BEES LOVE LOVE LOVE them.    I want to put one of the Vitex right out from the front porch in what used to be a place i grew various things but now is a runway of Tay's.  She wouldn't understand any plants,  but a small tree/bush she will go around.  And it will provide late afternoon shade for the chairs under the Old Apricot in case i ever fix them.

and

the third pound cake.   It's not really this shape.  But the collapsed center,  yes.  Better today than last time but still, collapsed.  I was thinking that i could pretend that this is on purpose,  and use the dented middle as a kind of Bowl for fruit?...the juice would seep all around the sides?  eee.   I have decided that it must be that twice now i have substituted fresh lemon juice,  2 T for 2 Ts of the milk.  I like the hint of lemon.  But maybe i will get lemon extract. Keep the milk it's correct amount.  Substitute the lemon extract for the vanilla.   

This time i baked it in the toaster oven.  It's a Good toaster oven,  Breville,  convection oven, so it's not that and it has a glass door so i could watch what was happening.  Halfway through the baking time it looked all great and like it should but then suddenly....  But it will taste fine and work to maintain the new layer of fat i am acquiring which is the POINT.   

Something with the doe Goats today.  They RAN.  They RAN back and forth Front to Back down the Migrational Coorider like they were being chased by a Cheetah.  There is an overturned metal horse water trough just at the end of the Cooridor to the Midde Yard that acts as a Drum when they gallop over it.....all day.  They jumped and twirled,  they head butted but so softly it was funny to watch,  the rising up on hind legs,  coming down to barely touch foreheads....barely touch...but they were so Involved in whatever it was....actually, it's still going on...almost dusk...and they continue.

it's 7:16.  Supposed to storm tonight.    After a couple or a few mouseless months,  i hear that clatter in the Tin Cat of someone trying to get out.  Will give him/her a ride to the ditch bank in the morning.  And that's it for Earth Day,  2016

8:09 p.m.  GREAT Thunder....rolling down from the Rim

 

 

 

 

 

Thursdays are becoming interesting days

today is my daughter's birthday.  4o something years ago,  i was in labor.   She was face up.  Would not turn.  Took 21 hours.  Sometimes slow,  sometimes the total opposite.  They wanted to turn her with forceps.  I refused.   I was Into It....i LOVED it....i was deleriously happy with it and finally for unknown reasons,  She turned and slid out.   And this has been Our Way over all these years.  She does things for  ways known only to her.  She does things in her own time.  I am so Glad to have received her.  

Michelle sent me a link about a movie,  1 hour and some minutes about dying.  It's called Mortal.  she'll post the link.  but it's blog.mortalfilm.com.  It  can be viewed for free through the 25th.  So 3 more days.   It's Extraordinary.  Much of it is things we might be very familiar with but it is put together in a way that takes in all the ways of looking at dying.  There are two parts of it that for me were priceless...the young woman with ALS and the scenes of the disembodied Energy walking the Earth.   I watched it first thing this morning and then had to go to the bank to send money to Alyssia.  She is in Hawaii and she and her woman Kimberly had somehow not read the fine print and miscalculated their expenses.  So...eating peanut butter and jelly for a few days already,  so i sat there,  waiting to talk to one of the uhhh,  what would they be called,  the two women who deal with Issues,  Anna and Neata,  waiting and watching people come and go and seeing them as beings who ALL entertain thoughts about death.  It's unavoidable,  entertaining thoughts about death even if for only a moment at a time, but i saw all of us in the same boat,  knowing.   But going.   and it was very Beauty Full,  how this is.  Just a big US.  Knowing but going.

This evening,  just before this,  i needed to change the water in the Buck tubs.   and for whatever reason,  Nogal was completely into whole body touch.  Usually he will be ok with ear scratching,  chin,  but tonight....his whole self.  He stood so still and i went down his spine, crown to tail.  Sides.  Underbelly.  Legs.  Whole self.  ???????????  Never since he was just a newborn.  TenZen watched and thought about it.  Goats are mysterious beings.

 

 

so here they come.  Following Mo's suggestion,  the second from the right is done with some very wonderFULL thread that Jan had recently sent.  It worked except for it's very hard to do a split back stitch...well, really,  you can't.  but i like it, too.  The others with a single strand of the 6 floss and well,  they will take some imagination but that's really ok i think.