windthread

this or nothing

This is the Cloth of Continuing.  the Cloth of Going Through that i made in September of 2011 for Wendy Golden Levitt's children.   Wendy's original thought was a Cloth that could be for when a child was ready to,  .....  go.  When they had finished with their work in her Sacred Space Place.  But sometimes the kids would go through a few times,  i don't really know,  maybe even many.  And sometimes they would just part the opening and not Go through,  but just look through to the other side.

Today, Wendy sent me this

here is the Cloth of Continuing,  placed by a child in the sand tray.   Wendy said it took the child two hours to choose and place the things on the Cloth.  For the child,  it's about Going.  Continuing on.  From a place she loves to a new and different place which has promise,  but is not the Place she loves and has loved.

How perfect that this mail should arrive today.  But then,  that's how it is with things from Wendy.

So,  I could just decide to take a Blog Break.   long and  indefinite or just put stuff here as it comes.  I am not sure yet.  But for now,  we'll see how it goes.

But in looking back through the Picasa Library of photographs,  and there are zillions and all are so heartfelt,  looking back for a pic of this cloth...it's like going back through days of my life as they have passed,  backwards...........Jude has cloths.  I have photographs.  both work.    But right at the time of this Cloth was the Magic Diaries Cloth.   From close to the beginning for me with Spirit Cloth.

 

 

so i went to find it somewhere folded on shelves and spread it here.  How faded it had become.  It hung on the west window wall of the ROOM for some years till i took it down and folded it away.  It is full of dust too.  Since i never finished so much of the stitching down,  to wash it was ify so i didn't.  Just folded it up and set it aside.  And because all in that time was so exciting and new,  i just kept Going.  

So....from Jan.  2012.   Now unto today.  and i am like Wendy's child,  needing to go but ......

So...i am thinking this eve,  maybe i will work on the Magic Diaries Cloth for however long.    Today i went to the bank and had cashiers checks  made out to the kids of mine...all of the Old Cowboy's money that finally came.  They are in the US postal Service network at this moment,  probably already gone out of Albuquerque,  whizzing their way in trucks to California and Colorado.  To California,  where Jenny and Alyssia are going through real estate things...making lists....making appointments.  Sometimes Jenny sends me things like this and since it's taken from the computer screen....well....

 

 

 

Real Estate pics.  Kind of hard to see.  But we can get the drift.  and i smile looking at them....Jenny is so not into "desert" but really...this is desert of a different kind.  So much of the land in that part of California is like this.  And yes,   not sand.  But here rocks and clay.  OK.  It's what they love.

Somewhere in the last few days i wrote this in the morning.  I set out.  To find the bottom line.  I worked hard making a Place and i made a Place.  I made it.  Now,  I will need to make a new place and i am nearing the end of my time.  This is new.....nearing the end of my time...Different than before.  

I don't know how to do this part...that has an End in sight.

 

 

~.~

Finished.  12 x 13    Garden     It's in the shop.  

As i'd determined to do,  i DID use recycle scrap,  but also...as always needed Deb Lacativa  for the purple sky and the butterflies...can't resist.

I finished it while it was storming early in the day then went Out for the afternoon.

Weeding.  Piles of Kochia.  A lot fed to the Goats but plenty for piles to dry and burn next month.

 

Garlic Chives that basically get no water but Sky water.  This year,  so little.  But very clearly,  it is enough.

 

so much August

 

SomeOne new.  Pretty sure it's a snake!,  YaY!!!!!!!

 

Caroline

 

the Most Sweet and Gentle Cinderella with her unsightly scur horn

 

and then, of course,  always for the camera,  Lucky Star

it was a day of hard love.   This Place.  Us in This Place.  

 

 

 

pg. 2 Mutual magnitization ~of souls and stuff~

the altar cloth that Jude Hill wove..  it's 3 1/2 X 4 inches.  small.  but big enough for a Goat's Eye Stone

so it's going to be a stormy day and there is work planned for this late afternoon or evening on the Buck Hut that Nogal has managed to almost demolish.  There is so Much  in my head,  i need to get it down here and it feels like when we learned how to write a paper in middle school...making an outline.  

Magnetizing.   could be called transmigration of soul.   I can't remember if i put this here before ever, but needs to be here now.   Back in Michigan,  my friend Nancy who i worked with would come over after work a lot and we would talk while i made dinner,  then eat together.  A LOT of talking.  The conversations  moved fast.  On this particular evening at the dining room table,  we are deep into some thing and kind of ignoring the kids.  Jonathan is in his highchair pushed up to the table and Jenny is maybe just  3yrs in her booster seat.    Nancy and i are talking and talking and then there is a pause.   And in a strong voice,  Jenny begins.  

"I flew and i flew, momma.  I flew and i flew through the dark to find you.  I flew everywhere looking for you until i found you."

We stared at her.  What?   Nancy and i looked at each other....What?  I looked at Jenny and said

What?

and she repeated herself.   

i can remember that as clear as if it was yesterday.     And it has been told  many times since.  Is a family heirloom moment.   Sometimes over the years in our more crunchy times as mother and daughter,  there would be nothing else for me to say but,     well,  you flew.  And nothing more for her to say, but to look off into the distance.

 

And then there's the story that i Have put here, somewhere,  about how when she was 16 and pregnant,  and we were so unsure and she was in choir class at the alternative highschool and had gone on her lunch hour to the corner store and got a piece of Fleer Bubblegum,  the kind with the fortune  printed on the inside of the wrapper put it in her pocket and  they were singing something that she loved and she had an urge to read the fortune and realized that what the urge was, was the baby moving for the first time.   The fortune said:

you can have what you want if you really want to.

and she excused herself from class and went to the office to call home.  I had been wanting her to abort.  She said that she Knew.    That she knew that she really wanted this baby.  and the singing and the gum fortune sealed the deal.     And there was that Felt Sense,  in her and in me.  And this is how Alyssia was "received".  

So....how do i say it.   There are threads between the three of us that vibrate.   There have been times when we disengaged the threads to get space.  But we have always put them back.   And it seems that we have reached a certain point.  

............................................................ok....i will take a break here and go feed Goats....i need to think before i go on.  

..............ok, back.  

We had a practice run at this some years ago,  but it wasn't time.  It seems now it's time.  I am 70.  Jenny is 45.  Alyssia is 28.    We are again,  magnetizing things and receiving things, not so much in some deliberate way,  but somehow just feeling like it's naturally occuring.  What can we Create together? For ourselves and for the children that have since been born?  What can we create in this time of humankind.  What has that Felt Sense of Goodness.  For us,  for the Planet.  We are three  different women but we share the deepest core values by nature.   

                                                                                                  ~.~

which leads here.  When i began thinking about all this in earnest again,  after the kids left,  at first was the Huge Angst about Leaving this place.  It hurt.  This love runs deep.  But i woke one night wondering if....What if i did go.  What about the Toads and Lizards?   That have come to the Water over the years and made their worlds.  The worms.    And i was given the thought:  What if i were to install at least 2 sand point wells with solar pumps?  One for each oasis,  Front and Back?  I asked Bill, Alz B's son and yes.  i could.  And yes.  he would check them to keep everything in order.   There was huge relief.  Just that.   But then,  more.    Travis has been doing things to get stuff ready for this winter...like fixing that window.   New dog door is on the list.  Buck Hut.  He likes it here.  a lot.  So when he was here the other evening,  i asked him.  What would he think about living here if i did Go?  And not only did he say he would like that,  but that he would Love that.   It would be a different place, he works on cars, so there would be cars in the Albatros instead of Goats,  but he would run drip systems for the Plant People and he would honor the beings who live here.   Of course,  things can change.  He's young.  I think he's 31?  But Maybe.  Maybe it can happen.  It's that Magnetic Field again. From the beginning with Alz B and then on through the days with the Old Cowboy and then all the ways he has been able to help me do things here in this last year. So...Maybe.

and we get now to the thing of that conversation with friend Sydney about EFT....how i loved those two words....

Even though...........................

how since,  i love them more.  They open out a whole vast space of possibility.  They give the story that i have repeated over and over to myself.... space.  The story about how i can never leave.  

Even though my love for this Place is so Strong,   it is possible that i can now love somePlace else, too.

What if?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

again. because it seems inevitable......

in a way,  the drawings come from the same place as Cloth.  But Cloth takes time.  Drawings are FAST, moments,  and they are There.  They begin with just the point of the pencil on the paper...no fore thought,  point of pencil on paper and they Go.  so this one,  a picture for me of the Inevitable.  OK.

My sense of my daughter and granddaughter is not normal.  I don't feel "motherly".  They,  to me,  are individual human beings.  We are no less and no more.  Really,  since their births.  All through their childhoods,  young womanhoods.  We are equal.

We have tried,  each of us,  in our own ways,  to DisConnect over time but it now is seeming at this point that there is something Inevitable about us.  OK.  

This goes back to the post of 8~8~2016...Things that don't go together but then somehow can.  The stories we tell ourselves.   Here,  the story of how i need to live alone.  Like,  totally alone.  Away from.

I am not good at keeping things to myself.  So I'll just tell it how it goes and we'll find out how it goes as it goes,  Together.  I am driven to Say Outloud what's happening,  even if it's just thoughts...but if the Thoughts are at the Center of Days,  they need to be spoken to allow Space.

So this is where we seem to be.  Drawn,  as in kind of magnetized into Something.  The Something being living 

Near

They are looking at land.  It would need to be a minimum of 10 acres.  Would be nice if there were more, but there's not enough money for that.  So...Ten.  Good Enough.  Each of us would have a corner of it.  There would be a common area in the middle.  

I am visualizing how it might be for me.  I sit and wait.  Eyes closed for something to come.  I see a deck.   I am sitting on this deck.  Tay lays a little distance away.  There are trees,  those Mountain Oak.  There is a path worn in the native grasses that goes Off and comes To.  Behind me,  attached to this deck is two rooms.  Small.  Maybe 12x12.  Haven't  "seen" them much yet, so i don't know.  Really, am not all that interested in them.  It's the deck that is important.  But.....i went back and looked for something i'd seen some months ago,  more than a year,  

Utube

DIY recycled pallet house with Ikea style assembly instructions.  Suzan Wines and Azin Valy.  ideal refugee housing in Kosovo.

this would be it.  Pallet house.  Because it would be in the "back" of the acres,  no electricity.  No sewer.  So daylight and compost toilet.  I'd need to go down that path to shower,  to use the computer maybe in the common area.  Also,  there i would cook.  I would cook for All of Us and this would be easy for me and good.  This is something i love.

The GOATS would be up there,  near the front,  near the common area.  I'd go,  with Tay,  to turn them OUT and walk with them.

Back where i am,  there would be chickens.  They need separate space from Goats.  Ok.

I Imagine them,  me sitting on that deck,  they,  coming, walking up that path...Jenny,  Alyssia,  the kids.  They will come.  We will figure stuff out.

It's a world of Climate Crisis.  This is the world they will inherit.  How do we go into that Together.

 

............~together~................

set into motion by Jude's post today....three....Jude Hill    Spirit Cloth

something is Shifting

an eye     a small pile of rocks

 

double click and see how this eye is made just from graphite clinging to the tooth of the paper...fragments of graphite,  no lines really at all.  fragments.

 

today...a Vertical Wink

do not be attached to the outcome

thinking today how some days,  i actually look forward to sleeping.  Night.   And i wondered,  because sleeping and night mean dreaming.  Dreaming means actually MORE going on than in any day,  so much,  so much "work" really,  so much needing to be accomplished  in the dreams,  but  as i thought about it, i realize that in the dreams,  there really is never resolution.   Just the going.  There is never an Outcome.  And in the dreaming,  it's not an issue.   But how in the day world,  there so often is an expected Outcome,   or a hoped for Outcome.  

How about if i was really mindful of this?  What would That be like?  Intellectually,  i get it.  But what if i really become mindful?  With Everything.....?????

 

end of August in the Pepper/ Eggplant bed.   

 

 

 

simultaneous on one single plant Being.

 

 

Discontinuity. it's August, why would i imagine anything different????

this is Kathy's work....there was a meeting,  i think it was Friday?  i really don't know without thinking about it,  but Friday is close enough.  Travis left a message that Camille who he knows was looking for persons to participate in a Peace Day and gave her #....she is the Director of the Subsidized Housing place in town...i don't know her,  or, didn't.  I'll get to.   Camille left a message.  Meeting.  So i went.  There were the three of us,  hence the International Peace Day Committee Coordinators......eeeee

There were/are some emails going back and forth.  Tomorrow i pick up some rendition of the above and my first task will be to contact and deliver to the 16 churches in town...16, how could that be?? but yes,  i have a list of 16.  And i have already called and had a great connection with the woman who is the Community Liaison for the College in town about coordinating with them and i am waiting for a call back from the Navajo Nation Alamo Reservation up and far beyond Magdalena.  

I wanted to be of Use.

and of course right now there are things that need to be done about the Old Cowboy's house that is just sitting there and papers to pick up and i go to pick them up and no one comes to the door of the office so i need to go do Something for a while then go back and

there was an ENORMOUS amount of Rain...Sky Water....from the storm yesterday,  everything Goat is soggy and they expect me to fix that,  somehow count on me to fix that

and i read Dee Mallon's blog post and that she is defending with Kidjo and laugh because i don't know how many times in the last couple days i have clicked it in the side bar,  gone to full screen and full blast and felt a reprieve

 

so this is me but for Some of Us,  not so much....double click in the center....this ONE,  creative and a First,  of having somehow created a centrifical swirl in the Feather Grass,  making a Perfect round place for sitting quietly and just looking.

 

 

canning

I love

canning.  I love following oh so closely the directions and the rules.  Just love it.  I'd forgotten how much i love it.  It's been a while.

 

 

 

 

There is a mess.  As i type this,  i have heard that totally satisfying sound of   ........   Tink.......the jars have sealed.  

OK.  5 sealed pint jars.  a 6th,  not quite enough...so it will go into the refrigerator  till tomorrow.  So much attention to detail.  So much timing.  5 pints.  The box i brought home actually would have been 15 pints at least but i waited too long and some started to "go".  Tonight i had to quit on the first go round because i didn't have enough ice to Blanch.  I love the blanching.  The heating and then

Plunging

into cold water.

Tap water this time of year is not so much cold,  not cold enough for a Plunge.  In order to keep it cold enough for just this much,  i put a container of frozen macaroni and cheese under the pot and then a frozen half chicken and what's left of a container of ice cream from the kids around the pot.  All the ice cubes.  Tomorrow...we'll see.  If i repeat the canning,  i'll get a bag of ice.   if i decide not to,  to just cook up a Vat of generic tomatoe sauce and FREEZE it....

but whatever way it goes.  it's Satisfying.  and gives me a good sense of what it might be like to harvest from the Garden all that would be needed for a whole year ahead.  I have the sense of that.  If i had no freezer.  If i had no store nearby.  To rely on this.  To NEED this.  

I like it, very much.

August ritual

unclaimed apples

 

ready for morning