windthread

not going to happen

for now,  just a Beauty FULL looking cloth.

i thought about it.  All day.  Trying to imagine how i might do it....those panels,  that idea of  intermitant stitching,  different ways to do that but nothing felt right.    And going by the feeling of

Expansion/Contraction

it all felt contracted.  and i finally surrendered to the fact,  a fact to me,  that i was trying to MAKE the cloth be something,  DO something that had nothing to do with it's own integrity.  And this is not how things go with cloth making for me.  How it goes is that i am in Response to the cloth,  first,  the textile its self   and as it goes, to the story that wants to be told.    

so i let it go.  and immediately there was a feeling of Expansion,  of Opening Out.  So....ok.  and ok.

i also am a zillion times better today.  I will continue with the Breathe Deep tea maybe another day,  maybe two.  But i am feeling so close to my ordinary self.  How amazing this is.  How grateful i am for Plants,  for Lani who listens to them,  her great Gift of this.

 

Milarepa...inviting the demons to tea

there is a teaching story that has many versions,  the first time i heard it, it was this way.  Milarepa, a so revered Tibetan Buddhist Saint...in the time of  the years long retreat in the mountain cave,  was off gathering fire wood,  returning,  his cave was filled with demons.  Horrible demons.  As horrible as you could imagine. Their flesh hung off them,  their stench was unbearable.    He at first tried telling them  the best he could of the teachings of the Path but they laughed and remained horrible and just before the end of the story,  his gesture was to invite them to share Tea.  

Sickness brings us to our knees.  We are weak and defenseless.  the demons,  in my own experience,  not so much demons,  but gremlins,  have an open door.  I looked up the word gremlin.  Not what i was thinking in my own mind.  So as i was feeding Goats just now,  goblins came through.  Gremlins/Goblins....not it either.  so i am going to rest with the word gremlins,  meaning to me,  uneasy, strange, troublemaking, unkind creatures.  gremlins.  When we are weak,  they can come.  and we,  not in our usual state of uhhhhh,  denial? or sense of our own ability,   or,  well,  not in our usual state,  we have nothing to do but to see that they have arrived.  My demons/goblins/gremlins are no longer about hate or lust or greed.  But they are about fear.  They are about the What If kinds of free floating fears.  They are how my mother raised me.  About all the things that might happen.  And only Jesus could keep us...but that's a whole different layer of this story,  so we won't go there,  but just to say it's STRONG and deeply ingrained from very early childhood.

So i am sick.  and Sickness is hard for me because it is so rare.  When it hits,  i am startled.  I become like that small rabbit in the field,  nowhere to run.  Frozen.  Wide eyed.  Then i become like Goats.  Just waiting.  No struggle.  Waiting.  

and all those free floating fears ascend,  or rise up and 

i have found there is nothing to do but to witness,  them,  me.  

and this time they are such great teachers.  I receive them.  Like Milarepa,  who taught me,  i offer them tea.

 

i have no cups.  So on the small altar cloth that Jude made,  a small weaving,  i put these acorn "hats".  As  cups.  I invite my fears for tea.  I say these words...i invite you for tea....and i have that blessed vision of the Calendula Flower,  opening,  undulating,  wings of petals,  swimming to the surface,  i have that Vision,  that i SAW and i invite them in the presence of this healing Being.

 

i will tell you.  Lani,  of Taking Root.  a Gifted herbalist.  a woman of this Earth.  The first night of the tea,  i slept.  Slept.  Slept.  Since then,  each night and day,  the herbs of this tea heal.    And heal in a way of gentleness,  of soft change to the illness,  to bring the body to a return to it's ability to clear and ease the experience of the virus' presence....

and i think how the virus is similar to the gremlins.

 

 

and i realized...this far....Will the kantha stitch make the MARKS on the cloth disappear??????? Can the  kantha stitches be 

intermittant?

looking.....understanding stitch on cloth

staying a little, because it has such meaning

i need to stay with this.  

i need to give this moment all that it is due.  In all the Ways that inform the present moments.

I am a human being.  I am sick with a virus.  I am FULL to the brim with looking toward so much Unknown.   These things bring me to such a point of vulnerability and i cannot rely on any kind of 

power of my own.

i have no power other than to face what i understand  to be true.  and that is Fluid.  changing.

our lives are at the Mercy of What Will Be.  Mercy.  I love the word/concept Mercy.  My most loved third  generation doe Goat is named  Mercy because of the story of her first days.  Mercy.

so...yesterday,  being sick,  i steeped the tea.  I poured the boiling water into the pint jar with dry plant substance...plants.  Plants. 

Plants.

Plant Beings that grow up from the Earth.  Rise from seed and can be harvested to heal Us.

that deserves being said like a thousand times or more,   Rise from seed and can be harvested to heal Us.   Say it.  Over and Over.

I am not too much the kind of person who is into hanging out with children in a vague sort of way.  I have my own interests that often will supersede this kind of motherly or grandmotherly thing,  but

i am in this time of my life that seems in this time of this evolutionary developmental moment on this Planet,  i am feeling the NEED to Be Here.  To call attention to the Real.

I heated water to boiling.  Poured it into a pint jar with a tablespoon of dried Plants.  I watched as the colour began to change,  how the dried fragments on the surface took on moisture and began to descend.  Then the pause.  and there,  as if for me,  as if as an Answer to the vulnerability and the fear,  a 

 

 

 

bloom.  a Flower.  Calendula.  resurrected,  before my eyes,  the petals extending,  moving,  

undulating

like wings

and in such slow motion,  brought Her to the surface...her Face,  directly in my face.  Face to Face.

Repetition

today another work away and i really don't feel good.  It IS a cold...i wanted it not to be,  but it is.  so ok.  and feeling somewhat blah and repeating  as  i do,  i got ready to go work and did.  Even after i didn't want to.  Even after i'd woken to a really Great email from Out of The Blue that answered a question i'd been having of Exactly How Long Is IT that i Have Been Posting Every Day????????  and here,  Out of the Blue,  the Answer.  March 3, 2013.  That's a loooong time.  

No WONDER i wonder.  Repetition.  I don't go back and reread posts...it's just a burdensome thing somehow and there is that nagging sense of repeating.  And i think it's TRUE,  i repeat,  because things are not so much different now than in 2013.  So i'm going to hope that tomorrow when i wake the cold is letting up and i will continue with this wondering but with more energy.  right now i don't have much at all to devote to it.  But i did

see God.

 

 

from Cynthia in Vermont,  from Taking Root.    Hawthorne, Spearmint, Hyssop, Elderflower, Eucalyptus, Fennel, Calendula and Peppermint

 

as i squatted,  taking the pic,  i watched a calendula blossom  lift and RISE,  in slo mo,  rise, Rise and i thought i am seeing the God Thing here.  I am seeing what is so hard for US to See.  How the God Thing is in Everything and is so so so complex.  But here it WAS....floating so gently,  so softly,  Giving and Giving

 

 

 

Watching

how every single moment is completely new,  composed of a zillion moments from all Sources that came before and have yet to happen,   to coalesce into this single one

Rain/Snow/Snow/Rain  Fear/Quiet/Quiet/Fear  

Work away,  driving in snow/sleet,  i did it because this is the week i buy grass hay.  On the freeway the driver's side windshield wiper snapped off.   I continued.

Came home to continue facing the possibilities of that  breach of the spillway there where i am going to go,  where They ARE.   So far,  they are safe.   The Hill is to the east of it all and most likely never in danger.

i figured out what was wrong with what i was trying to make happen with the Cloth and i think i worked that through.  Not sure.

I read and re read and re read Michelle's today post, mscomfortzone.blogspot.com  which is incredible to me...tho so indirectly,  speaks to Everything

 

 

 

 

straight lines

i can't send any progress with the Cloth.  I worked and worked at trying align the front,  the harem cloth, the back in some kind of orderly straight lined way and failed.

failed.

i am NOT a straight line person.

am facing that.  Deciding.  i stubbornly want to GO forward with this effort,  but maybe i just can't.  We'll see.

and amidst that,  phone and then pics from the Hill.  Daughter and her man and their two dogs...the dogs for the first time...went and she took pics from her phone.  She is an amazing person but not a photographer.  

 

she sent a bunch of pics that gave me a much better sense of it all.  This is one...the blue writing on it says Old Nana's house and that little orange ish thing is an icon house.  She says there are really 3 places that she sees as this.  That i should 

fly

there and

choose

Fly there, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeand NO.....flying is trauma for me....i want her and Alyssia to choose...Trust is good in my world,  flying is,  well,  trauma.

so,  it's GOOD.  they took the dogs.  YES.  and i got a phone call late from Alyssia that ended abruptly that Fate's mother and grandmother Cherie and half brother Elijah who live in Oroville are under an evacuation order because of the breach of the Oroville Lake Spillway.  Haven't heard back.  But how really GREAT this is that it happens now when things are just forming.  To know this EXTREME of things that probably won't happen again for who knows how long??????  How amazing stuff is.............

 

 

experiment then failure then success and addendums

https://www.youtube.com/wathttps://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIkII5WY5V0&t=182s/watch?v=dIkII5WY5V0&t=182sch?v=dIKII5WYVO 

 

following kindergarten instructions from Jude....DID I?????????????????????

This is in the city of Chico....maybe 20 min away from the Hill.   3,670 acres.

the first part: Vision is short..just be patient till you get to Inspiration.,  or, that's somewhere around 3

Addendum.  I found this one on Utube early this morning and watched and watched and watched and wanted to put it here,  to mark the day i understood where i am going.  Before now,  even tho they have lived there for a few years,  i never looked.  Didn't want to.  It was their lives,  their world.  But this morning i looked.  

I have been doing Morning Pages trying to sort through so much.  This morning again,  it is about "Time".  What is it, Time?  Time equals Life.   Time is being Alive.  Everyday.  Waking, Doing, then falling asleep and going somewhere else,  then waking again.  This is how it is.  Living.  Every day.  24 hours.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Spending Time,  Living.  Being Alive.

I think how when i Go,  i can't come back.

But really, i "can't come back" already,  and i'm still here,  i'm not even gone,  but i am.  Because it's time.  

 this is what i see.  it's Time.  

I watched the video many times and felt so like i was betraying what this Place is,  what i tried to do here,  what the land tried to do back in response.  This land is its own self,  what it has always been,  what it knows how to be.  But it Gave.  and Gave and Gives.  

The love for this is close to unbearable.

 

PART 2 OR 3?   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M2j5SIPC6U&t=50s  link

so there is lots of email exchange about what can happen and still,  i hold out for the pallet home.   

 

 

looking, turning, changing, looking and wondering WHY am i wanting to do this, but i am and so............

I brought in wood for three days.  Today,  Tshirt,  birkenstocks with no socks.  Tomorrow and Monday WIND ADVISORY,  rain, snow.  Ok.

 

 

Close

i like the word,  Close.  

There has been so much precipitation in Central North California this winter.  This morning,  word that the Spillway of Lake Oroville had broken.  The Hill is very near that Lake.  I startled.  What if the Hill

floated away overnight

Not.  There is good distance.  and Daughter sent me a map so i would understand the area and as i look at it,  i see rivers.  Rivers.  I can smell rivers, still.  and i realize how i am living in two Places already.  How we are built,  really, for change.

 

i need a back for that Cloth.  What i have is onion skins.  But too yellow so an additional bath of Tea. it's like SUN here,  the heat.  very well might be ok.

 

scooped up some sludge from the walnut vat and put in this aluminum pot to float some cloth which came out so softly marked,  not for this Cloth i'm working on,  but will be for others someday.

how the Hollyhocks winter over.   The exquisitely sharp feeling seeing this today.  How for so many years this is taken for granted.  The Beauty of how they do things....nestle against a rock or piece of wood and take shelter enough to winter over.

 

 

We DID it!

a Hill

 

in these pics from the realtor....even in them,  the BlueSpirits.....

 

 

 

 

 

Again.  realtors pics taken of the very small cleared spaces of this a little over 5 acres of the foothills.  Most of the space is close to impenetrable with brambles,  bushes,  brush,  small trees.  It's never known human beings before.  or,  at least not the kind who lay claim.  Which they DID,  last eve,  daughter and granddaughter and this morning the signatures were exchanged.  It's for real.  Today granddaughter negotiated for a manufactured home which they are called now,  no more "trailers"  but manufactured homes.  That remains in question.  But if that one doesn't work,  there are some "workers homes" on Craigs List.  These are those same manufactured homes but were used for field workers.  Everything normal in them except the bathrooms.  The bathrooms have more than one toilet and no tubs,  only shower stalls.  more than one sink.  This to acommodate multiple persons in one living space.  Like a lot of California is,  it's farm land.  Around here it's Olive Groves.  If you read the labels ,  your olive oil very well may come from there.  But we are hoping for the Blue House.  We'll see.

so up at the top of the hill,  daughter and her man will build their tiny home (or not so tiny).  Hill House.  and then,  Alyssia and the kids in some kind of manufactured home at the bottom,  near the road.  the Blue House.  and then the Goats Houses will be arranged.  and then 

and then,  the Baba Yaga House for the Old Nana,  who would be me,

 somewhere in those brambles and bushes.  A one room affair with a porch/deck.  Plain.  as far into the brambles as is practical.  That all remains to be seen.  The Land,  as it is right now,  would allow NO VIEW of these three places one to another.  

So.  if it goes how it might,  by August.  When Emry (subject to change) is born.  All might be in Place.

spiraling small care FULL paths on that Hill,  foot and hoof paths,  we will go slow,  making these,  following a design that wants to be followed,  letting the Land there know our smell.  

i woke this morning feeling like the whole center of me had cracked WIDE OPEN and extended far beyond the edges of my physical form.  

 

i baked a Celebration Pie.  I think it's PERFECT.  haven't tried it yet.  Would rather drink some wine.

How so Totally Amazing Life IS.

 

 

 

my world got Big today

Nina of Ruit Farm in Maine....ruitfarm.wordpress.com....is READY.  Those of us who really wish there was something happening in the Goat world here can go there and experience things to come.  These moments of hers now are what i look forward to so much when we are settled in the Next Place.  So much floods back of that first spring they came  here,  when 14 kids were born.  All without a hitch.  Go check it out and be on hand for the big moments.  and please leave her a message that you came.

and then....Deb Lacativa ...morewgalo.blogspot....her today's post about a call for work.  threadsofresistence.blogspot.com

 

is Love a kind of Resistance?  For me it is....as i wrote about the other day,  that i won't let what's happening take my heart down,  i won't let it take my reality away,  my days that are hand and hand with this Planet Earth....is that a kind of Resistance? and would this cloth be relevant?   Entries need to be a minimum of 20x20.  and so this walnut dye cotton.  Down in the low right hand corner is the place for the Lizard.  So.  I look at it pinned and wonder.  I've never sent anything for jury,  well, Cloth.  Back in the day,  i sent the "dolls",  the fiber figures.  I kind of like doing that.  it's about believing in what you make.  But in this particular instance,  i'm not sure it's relevant....but then,  who cares.  I might just do it.