windthread

who i've become and who i guess will go to the New Place

Off and on they worked on their Travel Journals.  It was the agreement.  Eli and his mother,  the agreement for being out of school.  I sat often on the porch listening to the exchange between them about what one writes in a travel journal.   They were quite self sufficient,  the parts of the trip when they were here,  at the beginning and then at the end.  They wondered if i wanted to go with them but i said no...unless it was important to them and it really wasn't.  So they went around happily and i stayed here being me.   Doing the RePlay in my mind this afternoon,  i saw how quiet i've become.  How i watch and listen and respond when things are directed to me but also seem to have lost all urge to entertain.  Stuff is very plain and what i talk about is things like that Sky last night.  We all watched and went back to see the final darkness with all the STARS,  but then too,  i was pretty quiet.  How often i said  "I don't know".  I don't know the names of all those mountain ranges on the circular Rim.  I don't know the names of those bright stars.  I don't know the population of Socorro.  I don't know in miles how far the Rio Grande River is from here.  I don't know the number of the annual percipitation of places.  and i didn't feel like i SHOULD know anything.  I was ok with not knowing.  and IT was ok that i didn't know.

 

so they have set out for Home.   

 

Emrie's Magic FireFly cloth waited.  Today i stitched.  Tomorrow is the appointment for the Amniocentesis.  Jenny and Alyssia will drive the distance to Sacramento to the place that does nothing but this.   First they do their own ultrasound and if there are what they refer to as "markers",  they will continue with the Amniocentesis.  If not sufficient markers they will not.  So it will be a great not knowing until decisions.   And really,  even after all,  it might remain a not knowing.  But we Go.

Yesterday,  daughter Jenny,  who will be Emrie's grandmother,  went to the Goodwill in Chico and got her 6  "really great" sundresses.  For good luck.

 

what we call Sky

my heart

Today,  just full.   Full.  of Everything.

Went to drop off the mouse and stopped by the mailbox.

 

 

From Saskia.   Tales from the birdhut.  Her March 6th Post about these small pillows.....when i saw them all together,  i needed this one.  Purchased... (Why do i say  "purchased" when speaking about Art?  I do that for nothing else....everything else, i want to BUY..Art i "purchase" ....like it's more polite than Buy?)  Anyway,  it arrived.

it's so amazing,  always that you can see and feel the maker.  I could see this small pillow anywhere in the world and i would recognize it as coming from her hand.

about a week before she posted about these,  both daughter Jenny and Alyssia had asked me to think what was really important for me to be included in my little house on the Hill.  Two things came to mind...a ceiling fan if possible and a windowsill.  a single windowsill is fine.  But i would love to have a windowsill.  These metal homes like i live in,  have lived in for the last 20 years,  have no windowsills.

The top of the book shelf has served in its way as that but i won't have the bookshelves in the new place.  So...a windowsill.  And looking at the photographs of the small pillows on Saskia's blog,  i immediately "SAW" this small pillow on the windowsill there.  I saw it as a place where someone,  anyone,  might place a thought or a feeling they were considering or wondering about.  A place for a thought or feeling to rest.  and i thought of Destiny who has many things she considers.  Maybe her. It's perfect.  and i had the urge to try it out but then thought no...i will wait.  I will set it on that windowsill and begin There.

My brother and his son return from Arizona any minute now and will leave for their train back to Minnesota on Tuesday i think.  I look forward to hearing about their trip.  The friend they visited works with horses as therapy beings.  

 

 

 

the daily practice....?....... the daily practice.

this is a pic of one of the pages in a catalog for Fencing...Premier 1,  Fences that Work that somehow arrived in my mailbox addressed to my daughter a couple weeks ago.  It's just the Greatest catalog,  full of kinds of fencing,  but also just a lot of practical information about livestock,  about deer and gardens,  chickens and predators.  On and on.  But i love this pic.  It's sheep.  not Goats,  but  my imagination can shift it.  And it's a hillside.  very similar to the Hill. in the open space of the Hill.  How the fencing meanders.  not square,  but meandering,  like how browsing  and foraging moves.  And there is a RedBud tree....there  are Native California Red Buds.  OK.  

Something we are finding,  as a Difficult Surprise, to factor in to our imaginings is that there is a TON of Poison Oak on this land.  As there is on most land there that is "abandoned".  The most convenient way to rid land of Poison Oak is to Clear it.  PO likes shaded areas,  not sun.  But the original thinking was to leave the Hill As IS.  Wooded.  Lots of bramble.  Wild.   But ok.  for humans,  not such a challenge...you learn what it looks like and stay away.  For our animal family,  different.  Dogs can run and chase rabbits through the bramble and return with the oils from the PO on their fur.  Goats,  which will happily browse on PO with no harm to them,  will carry those oils on their coats.

eeeeee

touching those dogs and Goats then is exposure.  So.  we need new and different thinking.  We work on it.  daily.  lots of emails with links.

 

 

wild rose and Golden Current

 

 

 

there is Spring Cleaning of the Shelter side of the Albatross.  Many.  Many wheelbarrows  full.

 

the Treasures of Travis and Everett.  the beginning of that in the unused half of the Albatross.  I looked at these today and there was a great tenderness.  How all of us love what we love.  They love these old and broken things.  They have such an imagination for how things might go.  To be a part of that....to offer and give that.......

 

Liz A commented about staying faithful to daily practice.  and it struck a cord.  

I went back in the Archives of this blog...seeing that it was April of 2010  and really,  just before that but it was on blogspot and the entries there didn't all cross over,  but close enough.  Seven  7 years and i think yes.  Of course.  7.  My number.  Seven.  ok.

i remember in the beginning i wanted to document the Cloth Making with Jude and Spirit Cloth.  I felt i needed to limit things to Cloth Making to be a legitimate blogger.  I didn't know what being a legitimate blogger meant.  New...i was new but so so enthusiastic.  So sure of stuff.

Over time i know it's changed.  Sometimes it's boring.  Sometimes it's sad.  A lot of it ISN"T about cloth,  but Cloth is ALWAYS about what it is.  ALWAYS.  ALWAYS.

the daily practice.  Like my buddhist practice.  A going.  It's all a Going.  Life is a Going.  day to day.

and i saw,  on the April 7th, 2010 post,  a pic of some of the "dolls".  It was good.  really good to see them there.  Where i came FROM.

This, and then

http://onbeing.org/programs/carlo-rovelli-all-reality-is-interaction/

 

the Old Cowboy's Chevy Silverado pickup that will pull that horse trailer

check it out.  Order:

Spark plugs

serpentine belt

rear brakes

powersteering pressure hose

Brake drum adjusting spring kit

Rear shocks

Wiper blades

Idler pulley

everything that seemed Ify.   Most of Everything seems GOOD.  so...ok.  Travis will do the labor.

Used said truck to go pick up THINGS....Travis....and Everett.....an engine hoist and something i don't remember the name of and an ANCIENT welder.  They were put into the half of the Albatross that is empty.  Funny,  how happy they were to be moving some of their precious stuff IN.

Julian might have strep throat

Watching how Tay loves Travis/Everett

Tazmeena sits on Everett's lap

I go late to grocery so have things for when brother and his son return on Sunday and coming back,  many flashing lights on the frontage road just ahead....a small white car off road on it's roof.  Turn around and go the other way.  

How there is so much that a single day holds.

magic

but first,  my LOVE to all in the Netherlands...my love for your country....my love for your STANDING for the community of the planet.  You did what the US chose NOT to do.  So...THANK YOU!

 

all my life there was the magic of black/white/black/white...back to when i had my marbles.  I would watch the black/white move.  Black and white stones.  '

in the time of drawing,  graphite,  the only "color" might be black/white...colored pencil....paint.

a time of drawing clothes lines with a "flag" of black/white vertical stripes and some small fragment of red.

here in the pic,  when i was growing and painting gourds,  most often the addition would be as this one is.  

sometimes there would be a turquoise bead.  One.  but always the black/white and somewhere,  depending on what kind of magic,  the red blood bead.  If it was certain magic,  then one of the sacred african red blood beads.

making the "dolls",  the fiber figures,  there was a string of 7.  Black/white/black/white/black/white and a red blood bead followed by a long long tassel of thread,  either black or white.

When i first found Jude,  Jude Hill,  Spirit Cloth.    I KNEW her,  recognized her by her Black and White Ninepatch.   I KNEW i had found Something really Once in a Lifetime.  And it is still true.

so.

across the top of Emrie's Firefly Cloth,  because we need BIG MAGIC,  i do that repetition of threadbeads.  Black/White/Black/White/Black/White, Red.  Black/White/Black/White/Black/White,Red.  Seven.

somewhere tho,  there will be a ......uhhhh.....there will be a........

well...right now,  no word for it.  But there is coming some kind of uhhhhh,  Jump.  ok,  a Jump.

What that might mean,  i have no idea,  but i'll know it when it comes.

 

here we are. where?, we don't know. but we are here.

yesterday Alyssia had an ultrasound.  regularly scheduled.  her mother,  my daughter, Jenny,  went with her.  Not knowing what they would see.

Alyssia's OB did it,  because it is the 5 month one.   not the tech.  Jenny said the ob is not uhhhh, well, userfriendly.  just matter of fact.  which,  in this case was exactly what was needed.

He looked and looked,  moving around,  trying to get Emrie to move around.  He looked long and Care fully.  Many times.  They watched.

what he saw,  what they saw,  was a

NORMAL

20 week fetus.

a Normal skull  filled with Normal brain matter all in it's Normal quadrants.

Normal facial constructs.  a nose.  Eyes normally spaced.  a mouth and lips.  no cleft palate.  NORMAL.   

a nice chin.

Kidneys,  Normal and functioning

Heart,  Normal and functioning,  all aortas and ventricles

Normal placenta.

hands...Normal,  not fingers clenched,  but at one point,  grasping her ankle that was at the end of a normal shin,  and there was a Normal heel.  At another point,  grasping the umbilical,  where she pulled herself and seemed to be chewing on it.

she was Busy.  He said if she would just stop the "scissor kicking"...and when she did,  Normal labia.

Normal.

Normal.

Everything Normal.

There is the amniocentesis next week.  they say is definitive.  ok.  ok.  but i think,  what about all this Normal?  but there is the blood tests that were Not Normal.  ok.  ok and ok.  next week.

But she has a FACE.  i so much wanted her to have a face.  She has a face.  a nice chin.

and so we go.

 

stitched together.  One cloth.  Some white Inktense.  And do you see the as yet unborn Magician?...just in around 5 oclock?  began the magic thread beads [ Jude Hill~Spirit Cloth],  the 7 beads...6 black/white the 7th the red blood bead.  Will go all around,  North to East,  the East

probably remaining Open....to  allow Spirit to come and go.

 

how Threads move.....the Lilac here forms blooms.  That same dusky purple as Emrie's firefly Cloth and talking to Jenny,  she gives me a mission to find what kind of native small trees or bushes might be planted on the Hill in spaces that are cleared of brush to discourage the poison oak there.  She says "like maybe lilacs",  and we remember the old ancient Lilac forest down at the edge of our world in her childhood home in Michigan.  Maybe like lilacs,  she says.  

 

 

 

 

Thank You All

and to say i miss being on the blog....the Connection.  I don't know how it will go.  Will have to go day by day.  But i think that life continues for Life Itself.  As  Emrie is continuing moment to moment,  no matter.  

 

 

and how it's going is that i keep wanting to tell her things....tell her what i am seeing here,  like whisper it.....it began yesterday morning when i noticed that this small volunteer little Whatever,  has  BLOOMED.  It has been growing there up against the trunk of the young cottonwood for 2 years.  I have no idea what it is....and suddenly yesterday morning i noticed the blooms as i was feeding the Goats....and i wanted to "tell" her....Look!....Look what's happening!  and there was a sense of goodness to this,  of a relief from the great sadness which still comes in waves,  but this telling feels part of it too.  And this morning,  sitting out on the log that borders the raised bed i watched a chickadee come to light on the Golden Current bush and flutter twig to twig and again,  i thought to tell Emrie.  

 

My brother and his son went in to Albuquerque for the afternoon and it opened a feeling of wanting to at least put some cloth to cloth,  looking at that piece that has been hanging,   i cut it.  Saw this small moon from Deb Lacativa and it works ....then the piece of ivory color....like a flowing.   I thought of fireflies and tho i haven't seen them since i left Michigan,  i thought that i want to tell her about fireflies.  So a magic night firefly cloth for her.  And i don't know any further than just today.  But wanted to tell You this much,  so far.  We'll see how it goes.

Thank You All, and Love.....

 

 

 

not knowing

i won't be here for a while.  I don't know how long.  But there will be nothing to feel or say that will be Real to feel or say for a while.

They are having Alyssia go to Sacramento for further tests.   The ones they called her about today indicate a possibility of

Trisomy18

you can google this.  No need to put it here.

Brother  is still here.  And i think a LOt about 

empathy.

was just out,  sitting on the steps,  looking at the Stars and wondering about the Why of things.

so i love you ALL,  so much,  but there's nothing really,  in the moment,  to say.

Thank You....love, grace and small Emrie.

all i did was clean and cook

if i'm not here for a few days,  i am being a Sister and  Aunt.