windthread

Solstise eve, the edge of the second Going. Wishing, some, for Feral

she was there again,  just now....but grown,  twice as big,  and her leg and arm stripes so BeautyFull and i am Care Full as i approach to turn the water on.  We know each other today, tho,  so when i look to see if she is there,  she looks back and i put my hand there...a HUGE hand,  her tho twice as big,  so small but she walks onto my fingers and turns her eyes UP to mine.... and i lower her to an Iris Leaf.  After watering,  she's Back.  Back on the spigot handle....i touch her and she moves so i can turn off the water.

 

Part of me still wants to be feral.  Human Love is too hard.  Feral.  I could camouflage self in color of Earth,  leaf, bloom, rocks,  only my human eyes to betray me.  

But i have chosen.  Human.  ok.

 

messages

Baskets said they can travel together

 

this morning,  before work,  i sit and look at pencils.  The brush is there,  that i cut to use with the Inktense.  It's painted red.  I don't like this so much and notice that a little of the paint is chipped.  I begin scratching at it and then get the jack knife and scrape,  then get some sand paper and sand.  Yes.  then,  taking the ink pen.  Black/White   Black/White.  Ahh.  Off to work.  Where behind Martha's Great Room Chair,  at the seam of the floor and wall,  i am vacuuming,  it's the end of the whole thing,  i'm almost done,  and almost so close to being Out of There,  but something moved and at first i thought it was a scorpion.  Really Really small.  So small,  and it scooted really fast and i bent down and it was the smallest lizard i have ever seen.  The size of a pencil line....its body,  its legs and tail just whispers of a line...TINY and i somehow manage to scoop it up and take it outside...it RUNS!!!!!!!!!!!

fast away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How things SPEAK...signal their beingness....

I was so close to finished,  not really paying any attention,  all that was left was on the other side of the wood stove, by the dog beds,  then under the loom.  Done.  I unplug the vacuum put it in the utility room and leave.  But that small small Being somehow Spoke....not so much to me,  but to my brain in a way,  to my brain that has retained an open line to Others.  I could say more about this but i'm tired and it's still hot and well....this enough to remember by.  I can't believe how small it was.

 

more

 

and i saw the string of beads that had fallen on the floor from when i took the calendar and the message stick off the wall for the moving of the futons bed.....looked at them here...

 

 

 

 

this one has its own Black and White from back when i grew and painted gourds.  I'd been thinking whether to take it or not.  It could go in the compost.

 

Going Out to give Water...the spigot

my hand moves but something says WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  says WAIT!!!!!!!!!!,  brain to brain,  mind to mind...which is it?  Brain?  Mind?  the Magic of both?,  Body and Spirit?

 

 

double click and look.  Right there at the middle.  Such a small being,  but such a HUGE energy,  to say STOP!....WAIT!

 

 

 

her Beauty FULL strip~ed  arms and legs.....

 

and in the middle of all this telling,  across the road neighbor Margie's granddaughter calls.  Do I have some oil?   Yes.  I have oil.  and i put it in a mason jar and walk across and go in and tell Margie...as i hold her close to my heart,  i tell her in her ear.  So i don't need to look at her face.  I tell her into her ear that i am leaving.  She cries...OH NO!  but i tell her that Travis,  the big guy,  will take care of the Lizards and the Toads and she laughs and says yes,  ok then.  She knows me.  It's been a long time,  lots of stuff under the bridge as neighbors.  And so.  On this day,  i finally tell Margie.

The messages make it ok.

the three large shallow scrap baskets....emptied into one of the deep baskets.    To see them,  naked, scrapless...to see their beauty.

 

 

in my next life...a basket maker.

 

and guess who this is????

FATE!

who loves Hats.  Fate.  How can it be?  but it IS.  Emrie's cousin.  His Father,  my grandson Jeff,  who was a late bloomer , and  almost didn't,    is BLOOMING!.  He is an Excellent and LOVING father and so Happy to be that.  He graduates from electrician's school next month.  Has his Journeyman's card.  A job lined up,   This son we see here.  It could not be more for them.  I am so proud of my daughter,  his mother,  for refusing to give up.  He blooms.  Happy Father's Day,  Jeff.

And my own son,  who father's  his daughter Giana with total and complete joy.  Like,  Joy.  He feels

Joy.

 

so...father's in my own experience,  not so much.  But fathers in this and this third generation,  WAY MORE than anything that could have been hoped,  or even imagined.

maybe

when Travis and Everett came to haul out the bedroom futons, etc,  i took off the Morning 
Wall the pics.  the Dalai Lama,  a buddha,    me and my kids,  Cynthia and her women in pussy hats...so they didn't get torn.  i tucked them in the Field Notes.  
But today i put them in this envelope.

 

Looked a lot at this

 

This is probably the last Cloth i'll make in New Mexico.  

Time now to do the Going things.  

 

 

heat

over 100 degrees.  the hardware guy swore it was 104.  his phone said so.  Hotter tomorrow.  When it's over 100 it becomes uncomfortable.  No wind and the beloved oscillating fan oscillates and moves the heat from here to there.   Yesterday was probably the same and there was no wind.  Tay slept outside last night.   Once Sun goes over the rim it cools.  It's this metal house that holds the heat.   I woke after sleeping a couple hours and went outside to sit with her.  It was gentle and there was that sense that desert expresses so well of reprieve.  The Stars were breathtaking.  Really.  

i gave water long.  Just for some,  will finish in the morning.  I stayed with the ones i did to repeat filling their water wells twice.  

 

the Vitex is doing well...has Grown...wide.  I don't trim it anymore.  I'd wanted it to be a tree,  which it can,  with trimming,  but that winter a few years ago when it went to 17 degrees BELOW ZERO brought it to its knees.  It grew back from nothing and i think it feels stronger as a bush.  Today it's  BeautyFull.  Bees.

 

also known as Chaste Tree.

 

just this.  and only maybe.  The Stick is ....asking a lot of thought.   a lot of looking.  More than i would have imagined.    The stick is another entity,  no less than the woman.   no less than the Crow.  I wait.

Jenny called at end of day.  she and Alyssia had gone to the Hill to work some more.  So slow  and steady, the work there.   But they finally,  for the first time,  and maybe because it was just the two of them (or three,  Emrie)  they actually 

sat.  Sat and looked.  Sat and were quiet.  Sat and talked.  They sat for the first time.  And she called not to tell that,  but to tell that while they were sitting,  MANY lizards came and looked at them.  She said they were Flying Lizards.  They would LEAP,  as if flying,  branch to branch of trees and undergrowth,  leap distances.   Almost as if they could 

fly

and she told me how they would come close,  because she and Alyssia were still,  would come close and LOOK at them...cock their heads,  as lizards do,  make Eye Contact,  turn their heads while listening [as if]  making  an effort to understand....and she kept telling me and i closed my eyes listening,  imagining her and Alyssia there,   imagining HER,  Jenny,  my "hard won" daughter,  (i guess me,  her hard won mother)  telling me what i KNOW,  what i KNOW,  that lizards are so curious about human beings,  are so interested in us,  so engaged,  really,  so willing,  so INTERESTED in living in community...

she is saying all this.  SHE is saying all this that i know,  so deeply inside me....SHE is saying this...

my daughter.

the Lizards are doing their work.  and it's working.  Gratitude.

 

 

 

 

the kinship of Boro and Kantha

both of which i learned from Jude.   Jude Hill,  Spirit Cloth.    

The deep pleasure of them.   How i do the stitching i guess isn't either one,  but some kind of  hybrid?

What i want from the stitching sometimes  is the Beauty Full flow that's created visually and equally,  the complete melding of layers of cloths....totally and completely into One.   Often they give the cloth a feeling of some kind of Energetic Field.  This time,  it's an Energetic Field of Holding,  of Keeping?

I wanted to look again at the Boro book....the catalog:  Mottainai: The Fabric of Life     An exhibition  at the Portland Japanese Garden,  2011.   It's packed away.  But i knew which tub.

 

 

and just looking to day,  i knew i need to Boro those Hose Dresses even it means they won't be Hose Dresses again.  

 

so here,  the stitch is tighter than if i was just wanting Flow.   I DO want flow,  but a flow of an Energetic Field.   

Before any more of that though,  i need to see what goes on the stick.  the staff.  What is the word i am wanting here????  i can't find it.   it is a stick/staff  of declaration,  of both standing ground and the ground that is stood upon...the mutuality of that.  of Claiming...both ways,  mutual and it's Strong even tho it is invisible.

every stitch

 

each stitch.   each.  determination.   

i have put several sentences here...after determination...but there was something no quite true with all of them.   So...leaving it.  with,  determination.  One palm forward,  One palm back.  It's enough.

 

today

the Tuesday Work Away and i'd had an email exchange about time and when i got there,  he was running late,  had yet one more additional tub of cement to put under the house which meant that half way through he needed to come in and walk over what i was/had cleaning cleaned.  It was so so tempting to say okey dokey.  DONE with this.  It's every other Tues.  and he knows Grace's Rule....be GONE....but that's somehow fallen to the wayside,  he's disorganized for his own reasons,  but well...i remain organized for my own reasons,  today wanting to go and get done and get back to watch Sessions.

anyway,  that and it's hot.

 

 

just definition.  more graphite,  a little ink.  Mostly the Crow.  it's a hard cloth to photograph....to keep the integrity of the darker cloths and the drawing

and i filled out papers that i up loaded from the Probate Court of Sandoval County here.  When the "i was married to" person was last in jail,  he wanted me to buy an acre of land in Cuba, NM from a young guy who was there at the time.  The i was married to person was a mentor in those situations.  He was so charming and charismatic.  This young kid was incarcerated on a first drug offence and his girlfriend was pregnant.  He wanted to sell this acre of land he'd been given by his parents to give to her.   I bought it,  little by little with a loan from the Old Cowboy.  We called them Refrigerator Loans.

I would pay them slow but sure. 

It's a beautiful piece of property up there in Cuba,  its problem being no water.  We went there a couple times to find info re getting water and it's not worth going into here,  but it's an issue.  It's on a small pond that is filled by run off from the mountains.  Fish and Game stock the pond with trout.  Elk wander across it.  It's far enough north to be almost like Colorado.  But point is here,  these are the details i  need to pay attention to before i Go.  Even tho he has been dead for uhhh,  over ten years,  i'd done nothing about it other than to pay taxes.  So now...while i'm in New Mex,  i need to do something and i have contacted the probate court there and uploaded forms and need to fill them out and get them notarized to get it put in just my name and i am so resistent to all this paperwork but......

so that is today

 

 

 

 

some Great News and more cleaning: the reveal

first,  Our Tina.....

 

these pics were taken off my monitor screen....her photographs were much nicer...but we do what we know how to...and what's important is 

Here is Our OWN Tina Zaffiro next to her quilt that was juried in to the Cherrywood Lion King Challenge that is traveling the country.  The Exhibit was part of a larger Quilt Show and she and a friend were able to travel to Duluth to be there.  The bottom pic....she and another artist were able to sign books  for  the Exhibit.  How GREAT,  Tina....this makes me SMILE!

for more on the Exhibit and its ongoing itinerary  goggle Cherrywood Lion King Challenge.  YAY TINA!

here in the desert,  we go in a different way.  Travis and Everett DID come and i watched with a little heartbreak as the big futons moved out.  NO heartbreak about the old mattress and boxframe....and just absolute WONDER that under neath it all,  in the space that wasn't high enough to vacuum for YEARS,  was 

nothing but a lot of dust,  a few old socks,  2 quarters and some boxes of floor tile that i'd forgotten about being there.  and also a complete unopened set of Videos ...Centennial.  The whole of it.  I think 10.  The old Cowboy collected videos,  remember?  Had hundreds and wanted me to have this,  saying it would be invaluable someday.  

The GREAT thing....not a single  "eeee" thing.  Not a single insect.  Not even the tinyiest spider.  I had envisioned the possibility of all manner of creepy things,  but no.  Nothing really but dust.

And so.  another lesson learned.

 

here it is.   The frame for the box frame will go out to the albatross.  That grey thing,  i forgot,  a box with cutlery....a wedding gift to the husband person and i.  Why was it under the bed?    Those are the utility shelves that i'll take.   On the right,  the two bottom shelves...my clothes.  In the next days i'll pull out the totally creepy area rug...it makes me cringe...is that totally synthetic substance,  but also all that i had money for at the time...years ago....to cover the even creepier carpet underneath.  I'll pull that out too.  And Travis and Everett will have to imagine what's next.   I've thought off and on about this day...with the gigunda queen size bed gone,  i wanted to replace it with bunk beds.  Twin size.  I would have.  But now.....

 

i love this pic.  It's full of possible story.  What's going ON here???????????  I could write a book, beginning with this image.  It's the little fold up bed cot kind of thing i got from Amazon when everyone was coming last summer.  Small.  This is my totally belov~ed bottom sheet.  The heavy scratchy cotton kind ....this one and a top sheet i launder at Bill's house every week while i work there.  On this little bed it's huge.  The mattress is wrapped in it...under and then over with excess tucked in.  Don't know how i'll work the top sheet.   But you can see....it's 

LOW

I'm used to being way up there,  right under the window,  right under the breeze if there is one.  What's that going to FEEL like tonight?   The Lama said: " Everything has a front and a back.  The bigger the front,  the bigger the back."  And here we have it.

This makes the reality of Change,  real.   Alyssia sent me a pic of herself out There on the Hill,  her profile...Emrie's Place...  I wish i was already there.  Am surprisingly so Ready to go.

 

just a little more with Agency.  and i should say that the Agency i am working on/with isn't my own agency,  as in my own particular space,  ....that i HAVE that.   But rather it's the sense of Agency in the context of my society,  my country,  the US of A.  It's about That agency,  the agency of a full citizen in America...it's That agency that is so in question in these days.  I'd thought it was a Given.  an Inalienable Right.  ??????  can't find that.  So....how does one go?.....strong in personal agency and helpless in the larger sense?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

feelin GOOD

so,  it's hotter than hot and as i am,  i suddenly feel like it's the day to do the bedroom.    Which is tiny.  Like tiny.  The full size bed,  a box spring and mattress,  OLD,  over top are two good futon mattresses.  So it's HIGH and is really the Only thing in that room i love.    The two futons bring me to window level and especially since Travis put in a Real Window some months ago,  real like that it opens and closes,  i have loved this.  But there is NO ROOM.  There's the bed.  There's the two utility shelves of cloth and my clothes.  That's it.  Well,  not really.  Against the wall is the fold up bed.  On the side at the foot of the bed are framed things.  Two large photographs,  a painting i never finished and a collage montage of my Minnesota Family.  And then the laundry basket.   Not there NOW is the other floor basket with all the Maybe s in it that are no longer maybe.   The part about it that is the WORST is that i can't vacuum  around or really under the bed.  Its been years.  eee......shame of that......

so tomorrow morning travis and everett are supposed to arrive and haul it out.  All of the bed stuff.  Travis can keep the futons if he wants to,  they are very good ones,  but he can keep them in his storage thingy.  The box spring and the mattress go to the dump.  I will use the fold up bed Until.  This is exhilarating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So i am vacuuming and sweating and vacuuming and vacuuming and hauling things out....and etc and suddenly there is no electricity and i check and check

the connections for everything,  nope.  None.  and i thought...wouldn't you know...i have used up all the electricity with this...but i call across the road Margie and her too...no electricity, so ok....  i finish up stuff and do the evening Goat things,  give Water  and decide to brush Tay.  She isn't into this kind of physical violation...brushing.  But she did well,  me hanging on to her collar and her controlling her anxiety and i brushed out pounds of her hair,  pulling it off the brush and stuffing it into a grocery bag and when she became  intolerant, i quit.  

 

she spent the rest of the evening until just a few minutes ago in her Sacred Space under the porch.

 

Apricots.  In this heat they fall as they become heavy with rippening and i set them here.  Eating through the days,  one at a time,  5 or 6 a day,  in the heat they are almost fermented.

 

Feral is in the shop