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seems as if this is Next.
and letting things drift near and around each other....how What this cloth might Be is connected with the thoughts of yesterday, with Making, with the commitment to Making, the commitment to being a particular Something for Time Being and it was again an
extremely stunning day
if
you double click and go
INSIDE this bloom....go there.....go there
the day was. Stunning. Having rained two nights in a row, having rained off and on yesterday, a soft seeping Woman Rain, everything is Greening.
everything is washed clean, breathing Green
I sat looking at it
and in between reading, i threw the ball for Tay, threw the ball, threw the ball, threw the ball. I dumped and cleaned feed bowls of fermenting rain and scrap, I pulled the THRIVING kochia weed and fed it to Goats one by one by hand, them taking them in their lips and teeth like delicacies. But mostly i read. I LOVe anthologies. I have 6 pages to go.
Last eve, granddaughter called as she does when she intuits that i am brimming with Stuff. We talked fast and hard ....remembering when this was the topic of one of her college classes recently, the changing sense of the world of the 20's somethings and very much including the "necessity and pleasure of parenthood". We talked. Is it because she is blood of blood? or is it Soul to Soul. Old Same, her, me.
and i woke in the middle of the night
i woke with neural pathways of my brain sparking and flashing in NEON, new pathways shooting out, opening up ROOMS of thought, connecting, re~forming, re~interpreting and all i could think was it felt like this......so i turned on the light and found this old tried and true book on the shelf, about Clustering in Writing the Natural Way, Gabriele Lusser Rico
and it was a Stunning day. And i wish i COULD talk about this book here. Not so much what is IN this book but what all it Opens up for me. But i think it wouldn't work. For me. There are too many quiet people out there and i wouldn't know how what i am thinking makes them feel. and so it would become too filtered. So....i will just let it become Alive in me and manifest how it will. And i hope it Does. Manifest. Become Alive somehow.
Everything, pretty much, is stitched at least tenatively in place. Except the very light blue on the right, WIND. Still loose, as Wind often is.
And this Cloth is the most "raw" ever. I think?, i think. Raw being frayed fragments. Collaged. And yesterday on Spirit Cloth, my mentor Jude Hill (feel like i need to keep saying that incase of anyone new who came in the back door) posted Fringe - the Natural Edge. Referring to the difference between a raw edge and a turned edge. and yesterday i responded in the comment box there: "the reason for me to turn an edge is to thereby emphasize some raw edge's rawness". The whole post stuck with me as did my comment and today as i was stitching down, i suddenly SAW what was happening of it's own accord. !
with this Cloth, i am being "asked" to go as far as i can with just the nature of the scraps. Letting them do what they will. And as i was stitching down the fragment/scrap along the left of the Being, i was caught so completely by how the cloth had arranged itself. And Lo and Behold, MaNY turned edges. Not deliberate on my part, simply the way the cloth had arranged itself in the scrap basket for years and now was, its "form".
how the edges that had turned themselves are so clean, soft, serene.
and how i DID turn under at the bottom, the long right hand scrap that is WIND
and
and we are going to hope i don't find myself needing to talk about this.
it's BIG.
but knowing myself, i might.
Flax in bloom, in bloom, in bloom and on and on....a song to Flax
Mercy came to listen
keep trying to find a time of day that the light will allow a true image of the color. This is close.
i found my Grandmother in the dictionary. A while ago, i was wondering where she was and well...right there, in the dictionary. Have a habit of putting photographs and other things in books. Find it interesting that they Show UP out of the blue. I never know.
Maternal Grandmother. She died before i was born. Katerine Frances Ludvinka. Born in a town in Moravia, that i can say but have no idea how to spell. Phonetically it might be Yero mer schizta. but i know the beginning, the Yero part is Jz...the Y. Moravia. Czech Republic. Part of the family income came from eggs. Story goes that her chooks would line up on the porch railing in the evening and she would carry them, one by one into the hen house for the night. My mother and her older sister were responsible for dispatching them when the time came. My mother held on the block. Aunt Frances whacked.
i'd thought it was going to be a Drift Day, a home alone to drift day, but very much it was not. Just getting in to the motion of the kantha, phone and it's the Old Cowboy's across the street neighbor, Karen, calling to tell me that when she was leaving for work, there were some kids in front of his house. Just standing around talking, smoking cigarettes and they had water bottles. She said she didn't want to stereotype, but they looked like gangbangers to her. Hmmm. I had talked to Paul Who Can Do Anything about how he had said that his woman's son Seth was interested in yard work last fall, i'd talked to him and he and Seth were supposed to go check out the weeds at the Old Cowboys, see if Seth wanted the job, the real estate woman having called me about it, the weeds. So i told her this and just kept on stitching. A while and phone again. Was Seth, to tell me that he'd be FINISHED with the weeds in maybe an hour and a half.
eee
ok. so i kept stitching for an hour and then put on my clothes and went in there. Here we have Seth, Gabriel and Damien. 3. about very early 20's except for Damien, less than that. Young. There has been serious weed work. Piles here and there. Still some finish work to do, but yes. They had worked. I'd met Seth a few times before with Paul Who Can Do Anything and his woman, Seth's mother, like it was Paul who redid the slope of the roof over the ROOM so the ceiling wouldn't fall on my head.....and Seth and his mother stopped by during that job once for a minute. And then at the grocery store. Seth has had his troubles as i guess all young men do anymore. But they all keep going, keep their eye on the prize so to speak, and here he is all happy as a clam and giving me excellent introductions to his co-workers who are anxious to make a good impression and i felt like crying. There are so few opportunities for work in this town. Not like it was when i was 20 and went through the want ads in the paper. Doesn't happen here. It's word of mouth and also random drug testing so if you are inclined to like a little comfort from weed, well, forget it. And i thought so much in those few seconds that maybe were a moment how i have a friend now retired from a long career as history teacher with honors at public school middle school who would take a puff on her lunch break during all those years just so she could teach History. and i thought about my own GrandSon who i love beyond love but who would not do yard work. And i thought about the minimum wage now in California and New York. And i asked him How Much and i could see he was hoping it would go ok and i said ok and added $30 and there was just great happiness all around. And just then, the across the street neighbor Karen came home for lunch and i took them over to meet her...i'd told them what she'd said earlier, and they exchanged pleasantries and i told her they would be continuing to come until the house sells. So we were happy. And i went to the grocery store because yesterday i wasn't sure, but i wanted to get some flour to make a Pound Cake with all those wonder FULL eggs from Jan and i realize i still haven't talked here about the Grocery Store Story, but i will, for now just to say that everyone is having to shop at the same old Independent Grocery since the other fancy one went down, and today as i am heading for flour isle, there is "Snowman", an old friend of that person i was married to and we greet one another and Hug as is the way and i see he is carrying a single can of something and i gesture and look, he laughs, he is shy, and it's a can of pinto beans...but it's a can of ORGANIC pinto beans and i exclaim....HEY! what's THIS and he laughs again, there is always a lot of laughing in New Mexico, laughs again and shyly looks down and says, well, i try to do my part. Snowman, whose real name is Gilberto, buying organic pinto beans and this filled me with
HOPE
it is still, hours later filling me with hope and maybe will Always be the one single thing that fills me with Hope. I could describe him further to you but it wouldn't be all that kind, but here he is, carrying his can of Organic. JEEZ.
And if that were not enough, in the check out line, ahead of me is Tana, the Social Worker from Hospice that was the beginning for the Old Cowboy and me not quite a year ago today and we talk and behind me is someone i've known for a long time and she chimes in and the Goats come up and the cashier young man who is new and just so great already says GOATS? You have Goats? and
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. He loves Goats. He WANTS Goats. His name is Jesse and i gave him my phone number.
Early, doing Morning Feed, I 'd been looking at Liz's post of all the Wild Flowers in her Texas Hill Country and this morning...here, my ONE wild flower. somehow it makes them so incredibly lovable because they manage to seed them selves, just one at a time....only one
Martha Stewart. Pound Cakes. 8 eggs. If it doesn't storm tomorrow eve i'll take Dog Trainer Jan one of these when i go to help set up the Hog Fencing. There is a lemon glaze.
Kantha is finished. I look. She says
Stand. Face what you know. Do what you can. Wrap yourself in the things of this Earth, of the Planet. Look for small things. DO these. Wrap yourself in the things of this Earth, of this Planet. Look for small things. DO these.
OK. ok and Ok.
so today was everyother week work away day, which i did, then on into town for the once a week in town day. Groceries and where i had three very fine conversations with people i'd never seen before. I wore my Obama Tshirt from those years that seem so long ago. Then stopped at Jan the Dog trainers to pick up eggs. I want to make a pound cake. and the great giant huge happiness........her young doe Spice is
......................................................bagging up!!!!....................................................................*
YAY and oh just so much Hooray because it means that my beloved Sunny Ray DID THE THING!!!!!!!
oh just Joy and Happiness. She, Jan, is still trying to dry her other Saneen/Nigerian cross off so he can breed her...which means he will have a Place for a few months still. Have Work. Be of good Use. Be all that he can be. O, my love, Sunny Ray.......
after that maybe the woman up in Magdalena will still need a Buck there. But that's far away and we will just stay happy for today. Happy for Today. Enough and Gratitude.
also got to sit with two of her new pigs, 3 new ones, really, but one young female is out in pasture with the original two. This gilt she keep in one of the milking jugs with the really LITTLE boar boy. The person she got the original two from called her, needing to reduce his herd*, family emergency thing, so she took 3 more. The original two will be meat in the fall. But these three, if she can do it, will be kept as breeding stock. The little one is the size of a small cat. The feel of him was WonderFull.
*bagging up....sometime near kidding the udder begins to plump up. different for each doe. Could be soon, could be a while. But she IS bagging up.
**i forget what you call a flock/herd of pigs...drove?maybe? a drove? but not a herd.
need to finish this. Cannot decide on how many strings and where. Need to decide. Need to finish.
AND ADDENDUM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the
crickets.
the crickets just now began their song. 8:01 pm April 5, 2016
crickets Sing.
as it is, a Work Away.
Home. it's hot. i'd taken off my socks at work. Home, more hot. April, New Mexico. Cold in the morning you build a fire. Later in the day it is 80 something degrees so you end up stitching in the raw. Socks off at work this morning, levis off for nap, shirt off for kantha. Stitching in the raw.
late afternoon, how they lined themselves along the shadow of the trunk of the dead Russian Olive. Shade is shade. Everyone says oh, i'll help you cut it down. They use it. Birds use it a lot.
early eve Feed, once again Snowbunny, the old Gramz was in one of the feed bowls. So i get the camera and go out...this is her just to the left of my foot, they all come running thinking the camera is something interesting to eat maybe. So, no pic of her in the bowl.
these are the usual kinds of pics of Goats. But look at the beauty full marks their hooves make in the sand
Arctica, the only doe with natural horns
and just more kantha. Stitched in the "raw". Slow, Slow, slow. Back/forth, back/forth
but the FEEEL of the Cloth changes, strengthens, becomes.
i first thought to do this kantha "frame" maybe 2 days ago, but then wasn't sure it would work because it's such a small space. But it does. and i'm Happy it does. it adds some weight to the edges that works with the strong image inside. I was thinking, i should remember this. Because it's much easier to do the stitching when the ground cloth is still empty. Cumbersome, now with the figure in place. But as it is for me, i wouldn't have known ahead of that moment when i thought of it two days ago. The Cloths, always just Going as they go....of their own accord. no forethought on my part
but it's Working now and feels really good in hand even tho the second ground is not yet attached which turned out to be a good thing because i can kantha "in" and under it a few stitches.
This, i can remember. That second ground cloth was a very subtley but Beauty Fully marked cloth. If i can remember to think things through some....i might not have used it because it is now pretty much obscured by the figure. In a way, it is wasted. Something more plain would have worked just as well other than i know it's there, but no one else will imagine it. So, i can try to remember that.
The thing i WILL remember, that is imbeded in my mind is that this new Epson XP 320 printer is a piece of junk. I've had it since last October. It came with ink. I've replaced all the cartridges, maybe a month ago and have not used it much. Today it tells me that Magenta is "LOW". Ok, i thank it, but even tho Magenta is only "low", still the image prints out with vertical lines through the image.
DO NOT BUY AN ePSON XP 320 printer. They use ink like air. I had the old HP for maybe 15 years until it collapsed. It was a much better printer.
Even with the bad thoughts about the printer, it was and still is a very gentle day.
This morning there was this from Marti
she'd been Out communing with her dye pot and not being satisfied, she re~bundled and re~clamped the bottom and sent this pic among others. I always love to see what she's doing but for some reason, this photograph taken from the monitor screen just made me crazy. I love it's graininess, the forms of the fence, line, clothespins, cloth and clamps. I just LOVE this photograph. I never understand why, when we, the "we" have something extraordinary, we are not inclined to offer it UP to Others who don't have the extraordinary....like in if she made Cards with this image, i would buy a Ton of them, send them everyday to everyone with total Joy, just so BEAUTY FULL and ENERGETIC and FINE to me
and then, last Monday, when i was going to leave after taking a pizza and sharing it with Audrie in town, the Honda car wouldn't start. No forewarning. Just dead as a doornail. So we stood and looked with the hood up. Nothing seemed loose. and after standing in silence for a while, she said that her next door neighbor was always under the hood of his car, she didn't know him tho, so i walked over and knocked, explained and he came and took off the clamps on the battery terminals and cleaned them and noted that the Neg charge clamp was just so corroded that it couldn't be tightened and he worked some at it. We finally jumped the car with Audrie's and i made a bee line for Home.
There it sat while i regrouped in my mind. OK. Yesterday (regrouping takes some time sometimes) i hooked up the battery charger. Let it run all afternoon.
let it run on fast charge 40 amp continuous. All afternoon. at the end of which time when i disconnected and turned the key....Nada. not even a click. Dead. So this mid morning, i combed my hair and re-connected to the 200 amp Engine Start which took a couple tries but YES and i unplugged the charger, got behind the wheel and made a return bee line to the auto parts store, careful to slide through stop signs and judge traffic lights, taking no chances. New battery and YES!!!!! Perfect! This may seem very mundane, but for me, is an accomplishment. And i realized that this old Honda is 30 years old this year when i had to give the year make and model. Hmmm. But i was Home and all was well and i took my 20 min nap cause that's how it's going these days. 20 min mid day nap, followed by 40 min at least Sitting before on with a day....
The nap. Always Deep Sleep.
And i awoke. Lying there on the futon, on my back, different from my night sleep, on my back so i don't sleep too long
i woke. lying there...just looking....well, not even looking, just eyes open, waking, "re~entering" and just saw through the house. The door is open, day comes In, Sun is warm, sound of birds otherwise Stillness.
I am awash...No...too strong a word, no, it was so so soft, the feeling, so light, yes , light, a feeling of great well~being not because of anything at all, just this very light soft flow of the Goodness of Everything. I felt so happy to live here, just Happy for No Reason.
I felt something then
in my hair. Maybe it's my Lucky Twig. It's now on the altar.
to avoid posting about something that MIGHT happen, that i HOPE might happen, that i WANt to happen. Instead, report on the days events, occurances...WHEN they are happening or Have happened.
There is a better way to say this, but oh well....
For example. Last eve at Feed Time, i was late, i was SHOCKED. There was little Jack Flash...the whole side of his face, down his nose and onto his throat, covered with Red Red RED congealing BLOOD.
Dog Trainer Jan had banded his horn buds. It's one of a few ways to deal with horns. She'd never done it this way before. It was partially successful. One of his horn tips Did wither and fall off about a month ago, but still leaving about an inch of vital stump. The second horn, the band had scooted upward and only the top half of the horn was withering....but it seemed that it might be ok enough. A Wait and See. The only other thing to do would be to totally re-band both, close to the skull and by this age, it would take much longer and the possibility of success diminished.
Goats, male and female all have horns. Goats, male and female all have scent glands at the base of their horns or where their horns might have been. They are forever rubbing their heads on Things, Each Other, and here, ME. To mark. To Claim. To Say....I am Me.
Something happened for Jack Flash. It was close to dark and he wouldn't let me near him. Nothing to do but wait.
So i came in. wrote the post and following my own Rule, didn't talk about it. He would either be Dead in the morning, all weakened so i could help him, maybe, or just Fine ish. I woke often in the night.
This morning i dreaded going out. But as luck would have it, he was Fine ish and somehow had even rubbed off all that Blood.
REPRIEVE
it's the one on the left in the pic, his right
him and his Old Companion Gideon...double click....doin what they do
Old Man Gideon
double click all of these
how we keep Good Company if we are a Goat
the walnut cloth that was left. Forgotten. to rot
Jaxson. I still call him Fate. We followed our most deep instinct. Here he IS. Just Going.
