windthread

Metaphysics

a branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things,  including abstract concepts such  as being,  knowing,  substance, cause, identity, time and space.

Metaphysics

I think a lot now in the context of what i might want to talk with Emrie about...in the time  i will have with  her,  as she is just going,  with her human being ness.   What,  maybe till she's 10?,  12?  Who knows.   So  a lot now, as i go along,  i Re View things.  What in my life experience do i believe to be true,  to be of value.  What matters.  She will take it or leave it.  Just like 9 year old Julian does now.

a current example:  How WE  All  went forward with Susie's Loom.  The genuine happiness this brought.   for US.   Which led to a lot of thinking about Giving and Receiving.   About how i have always been good with the Giving but found any Receiving  hard.    And as i thought,  i went back to all that i studied and learned in the 80's when we would be advised to  "just put it out there,   Ask the Universe".    The persons advising this having great confidence.  This led to thinking how for whatever reason,  i had never done that.   If i wanted something to happen,  i would figure out a way that    I    could make it happen.   But to Ask?,  no.    I sat thinking.  What do i believe possible?   So i wrote in my stenographer's notebook where i write things....

a shed.   I would  like a shed,  Universe.   

and i closed my eyes,   hands on my knees,  palms up.   I visualized the vast whirling space quantum physics tells me about and let it Fly...up into that.   the    Universe.   

I woke the next morning to Michele's comment and then Patty's.   I was Startled!    Their OH SO Loving Enthusiasm!    Could it Be?    but immediately took some steps back....and since,  have been in constant dialogue ,  my two minds....   What if?   and  the dialogue goes....it can't be.  What i meant was maybe a posted shed on Craigs list.    But here,  these two BeautyFull Hearts...all energized....What if?   But then i think,  no....Susie's Loom was a Need.  This shed is not a Need,  but a Want.  And Susie never asked.  She just told me that she was a weaver and had left her loom behind.  I offered.  She never asked.   And the dialogue went on about how you shouldn't Ask for something you don't NEED.  So much NEED in this world.  the word Selfish arose and right away,  i could link all this,  the Wanting,  the Having to very old childhood experience.  Wendy Golden Levitt would love this.

so it's the kind of story i will tell Emrie,  ask her what she thinks.  Or,  maybe by then,  i will have learned more and we can talk about it in a different way.

This Cloth above.    The two vertical Energies,  Spirits are creating the Thing between them Selves.  Neither the Vertical Energies or the Thing being created can be known with ordinary mind,  but Recognized in some Other way as being Real and as happening.  This Cloth,  as with the 6 others,  so much the influence of Desert.  How things there were  in bas relief.  Singular, rising from sand or rocky expanse.   When i moved there,  that acre,  there was Nothing.  Sand.  3 kinds of weed.  No tree or bush or rock even.  No shelter.  Nothing.    Here...so different.  Where so much of this Hill has existed as it does today for hundreds of years,  forming, reforming,   A biosphere of reciprocity to the nth degree.    As i type this,  a Great Electrical Storm....Thunder Man.   Maybe the Last Rain of this year.  How it feels to become a small part of this Place,  to come to feel One with it,  to feel it working ON me,  tuning me to Its way.  The Cloths are now reflecting that.  What will they be like now?  

 

 

 

today i was drawn down to that creek canal at the bottom of this Hill.  Watching the miracle of moving water.

Life is so Big.

who are we? and does it really matter? and if it does, why? and how?

i have thought about many many things today.  I'll come back to this tomorrow.  It's too crowded in my mind right now

mending. Together.

We were there.  In the most natural way,  a time of Great Loss.  We felt it and responded.

Irene immediately offered her tapestry loom,  Jude,  a table loom and Micael,  in Santa Barbara,  a FLOOR LOOM that she said she would bring up to Susie in a UHaul....!

all the shipping is covered.  We breathe.

There is mending.  Weaving in,  together.  If we all could,  each in our own way,  continue to Wish Well as Susie reCreates a Life.  

As much as the loom was for you, Susie,  the mending is for All of Us.  Thank You for receiving.  

Love and Love and then...more

 

that First Bird

one of the very first Cloths.  Woven strips of  stained muslin.  

it's hard to tell here.  It's the clothes line Out Back in the old home in Polvadera.  In the Desert.   There were a couple more things,  scraps/fragments hanging on the line,  but i remember vaguely wanting them for some other Cloth as time went on so they were taken.  I wish i'd left them.  Maybe there's a pic somewhere in the Archives.  I'll go look.  or not.

Components.  a word for Important Things.  The components here are just just enough.  Sky.  Earth.  Energy thereof.  Plant People,  the doing of the human,  the Moon.  and First Bird.   Who was a meadowlark.  Every morning.  EVERY morning,  in the still darkness,  but just before coming light,  First Bird would sit Out There,  either on the clothes line or in the single Russian Olive tree.    Was invisible in the dark.  But so much there.  Always.

This cloth was made out of Love for that Bird,  for the Place of that Clothes Line,  for the fragments of cloth.  For Jude teaching that time can be captured and held in old scraps of cloth.  Could become as alive as a Bird.

 

YES!!!! Susie's got a loom again!

 

Susie has her loom.  And Irene has sent an additional  package with accessories.   From Sedona.

the shipping for the loom was almost $60.  i don't know about the second package.  So if several of us chip in $5 it will truly be from All of Us.  With huge thanks to Irene.

send me an email and i'll send you back Irene's address.

This is so Great.    Love and Love...... 

 

recording. keeping track. journaling.

some times,  i will write or draw in the journal book.   thinking about that today,  it's when i want to Place mySelf.  But really, the cloth making  has become the journal.  

In a bin in that back room....i didn't really know what.  and among other things,  i found these seven Cloths that i have kept.  Sat,  long this morning,  looking,  touching,  holding them.  Looking at Why i kept them and why i will continue to Keep them.  Something with each is like no other.  Something with each is important to me in the going of my Making.  So,  they,  in their way are journals.

i see how they are all so "light"....their Grounds,  light,  as the desert where they were created was light Earth.  and how almost immediately,  this changed upon arrival to this Place of the Planet that is so much Forest and dark Earth.  How influenced i am without knowing.  How great this is.  

I will keep these 7 out and keep them within Touch.  daily.  Let them inform me,  let them talk to Cloths that might be coming now.  Telling.

 

What If ing

 

So,  to be ready for Jude's  Next,  i spent time in  What If.  Spent a LOT of time in Applique.  Just like back when in the workshop class,  What If again applies to everything.

I'm thinking about what i do...cloth collage....and recently including the drawn,  the graphite and ink.

How it has grown from a desire to allow the third element,  the plant dye images,  patterns and designs to share equally.  Not as a component,  but as maybe the "scene" in which the components of cloth and drawings tell story?  Like a stage upon which the storyPlay unfolds?

Or even,  how it seems more,  that they (plant dye) are the planet's elements...earth, sky, desert, forest,  in which the actors (cloth and drawn image)  human,  animal and spirit carry out a certain storyPlay.

Both of these Cloths were very much about this.  Very much What Ifs.  

 

in Language,  there are 4 levels of  being,  the plant dye   "world"  upon which is a Bright Day.  And then the drawing,  the imagined image of a forest spirit,  a deva.  Telling of language from within the world of Cloth fragments that represent the energies of birds,  flowers,  moving water,  mating,  birthing,  dying,  transforming,  seeding,  blooming,  flying,  crawling....the LIFE of the world  in which the deva exists.  

These are good things to think about.  I haven't taken time to do that before.  So...What If.....all this?  Thank You Jude Hill, Spirit Cloth for reminding to begin again.  This is Joy.

 

from the pic on the lap top,  Marti's sacred ordinary.

you can Believe me, addendum at bottom, then, addendum 2

 

i wonder sometimes about what i write here.  Sometimes have second thoughts,  wonder.  Like last night.  Should i talk about this Place?,  this small metal home?  my feelings about living here?  

or not

maybe not?  because it seems like some kind of hardship?  When it isn't ?  When it's just how it is for now,  or maybe, who knows, for my Forever?  Should i just leave that part out?

and i thought,  in the middle of the night about how much i love word from others about their lives...how they live,  things they wonder about,  things they love,  things they don't love,  like maybe stripped upholstery window treatments?  Would that maybe make me laugh...the dumbness of using any energy to not like that?  

Kay sent a link to a young woman's Utube.   Jonna Jinton in the north of Sweden.  There are several,  but she linked me to recent ones that tell of her great grief over the loss of the forests there to a Huge commercial Wind Farm.   The great sorrow at  needing to leave that land.  She is a photographer,  videographer, writer,  her husband a jeweler.  They have moved.  Their life has gone on.  What i loved a lot was their work to maintain their fire during winter,  then her joy of shoveling snow to "help" the thaw of Spring.  Small things.  Her sitting in a lantern lit barn starting seeds in pots for the garden she hopes to have.  She is young.

What i would want to read in Blogs,  is 

How do people live?  How do they go through their  "ordinary sacred" days as Marti so often says.    And if truly honest,  that would include those days of mumbling about a particular circumstance,  no matter how trivial,  or telling of a deeply difficult grief.

the important thing is....that it's all a part of the Whole.  I think nothing should be left out.  The blog does not serve then,  to help the blogger see clearly,  learn more.  Love more.  And in my case,  to make that connection with me.  To help me know humankind better,  to see my own self in anOther.  

so...not to worry,  ever.   I will say that,  if it is a true tribulation.  If it's just some dukkha...Buddhist...commonly translated as "suffering,  pain,  unsatisfactoriness and painfulness of mundane life.  It is the first of the Four Noble Truths"  Wikepedia  I will say that too.  You can believe me.  I promise.

 

 

at mid summer last year,  Jenny brought two lilac bushes in 5 gal landscape pots.  They sat  there,  being patient,  while there would be intermittant short conversation about where to plant them.  They were for Alyssia,  at A.  They sat.  No one decided.  Finally,  early fall,  i planted them up above the Wall Garden some feet apart in what i envisioned as a tiny Secret Garden there,  in a small cove of Scrub Oak.    Their blossom buds are unlike any lilacs i have ever known before.  They are succulent, plump.  So much so,  they make you want to eat them.  Only a couple individual ones have opened,  but....yup....lilac.  

ADDENDUM:  ok,  i give up.  the "selfie".  i am wide like a frog or a toad.  and maybe that's as it should be?  I tried to fix that but it just got worse.  So,  you'll have to just get the drift

ADDENDUM 2   if you tap the pic i think i become normal.   Whatever that is.

 

 

 

big bird beings

it,  he,  i think,  strolled up.  Slow.  one step,  one step.  I love how they go...one step,  pause,  one step.  This is from the window here at the table.   Puppy watched.  for a LONG time,  just watching as he came slowly.  Double click to see him near the meditation swing.

 

he continued.  That same measured pace.   She got up and  began to stalk,  measuring her pace to his.  Step by step.  She followed him down all along through the old Buck Forest to the far gate where he flew up onto that gate. 

There is a band of them.  I have pics from last week.  The male is magnificant with his display,  like really,  magnificant.  There are 7 females.  I think this is a juvenile male,  exiled.  I've seen him 3 times now.  Alone.

points of View

I made a mistake.  the pics in this post are in opposite order.  This was supposed to be the last.  So....if you have the  Will and stamina,  go to the bottom,  the last post,  that will then progress backward,  back up to this one.

and at the end,  i circle back.  this is the back room that is supposed to be the bedroom but i makes me feel crazy.  It's 8ft wide..the width of this trailer or so.  Almost only the size of this queen mattress plus maybe 18 inches.  BUT windows on 3 sides.  IF i were to decide,  I would need to get rid of the bed and frame.  I would need this SPACE.  For a chair.  For my Dalai Lama end table.  For some modest shelves.

What else would i want?  

Would want to take out the "window treatments".  They creep me out.

a picnic table,  just outside.  For dye pots.

a storage shed.  So i could bring my Stuff over here.  My books.  Jars.  Stuff.  Instead of paying $72 / month to keep it where i can't get to it easily.   I would want a wooden storage shed,  aesthetically,  but they are expensive.  A metal one is $329.  8x10.  

I haven't talked to either Alyssia or Jenny about this.   Am just thinking.   What Ifing.

 

 

door of bathroom into the Back Room

 

shower.  

 

 

then the bathroom

 

 

and then,  turning,  back.  The middle room where the entrance door is.   Kind of a Living Room.  that flat thing is the fold out "couch" that becomes a bed,  that IS my bed and pretty much stays folded out because it's also where Emrie and i do the nap ritual.  Pic is taken by me standing at the farthest back of the kitchen area.  That much space.   At the above end,  you see the Wall,  the Looking Wall.   A piece of canvas over a pvc pipe suspended by heavy string.  Folded up and over in this pic...how it is unless i am alone for a day,  when i let it down.  It's up so it's easier to get to the bathroom.  Also,  i guess,  some less claustrophobic for others.  Doesn't bother me that way.

 

 

my side.   the Space i CLAIM as MINE.  My  meditation cushion.  My corner of stuff.  

 

Emrie's booster seat.

 

the Table.  Where everything happens.   at the window,  the Battery.  There are 3 of them.  Alyssia takes them to and from her home where she charges them.  Here,  they juice up the Phone and the Laptop.  Also provide light.  There is no electricity here.  I have one sided conversations with her about the  "burden" of this.
Outside,  over by the Old Buck Yards are solar panels.  They could be easily afixed to this travel trailer.  Provide probably more than enough electricity except during the winter grey days.  But,  easily,  there could be Wind to generate that.  It only takes a decision.

 

 

a good enough kitchen.  I cook.  Wash dishes.  

 

looking from the bathroom door,  through the Middle,  into the Kitchen,  the Table space

 

Going along with Jude's online class,  Patchwork in Perspective,  .....her post,  Haven.   To do with Space.   the space in which we work.   Often times referred to as studio.  Back in New Mexico,  my daughter and i cut through a wall and added a ROOM.  It was referred to as the Room.    it was my Working Room.   My Room.  or,   The Room.   Its own Room.  It was Wonder FULL.  Had half wall windows on three sides.  Light.

reading the comments to Jude's post,  Doris appeared...Doris from so long ago,  who loved the Snake Tree.  She said

"In my room in our apartment there is the big dining table.  We only use it when family or friends come for dinner.   The rest of the room is full of my stash and a desk.  I mostly work on the big table....When we invite friends or family for dinner I always have to spend a lot of time to clean up.    Some weeks ago I sat there looked at my creative chaos and I realized that studio was too big a word for me.   Only artists have studios.  Somebody like me works on the dining room table and don't take up too much space.   So why not change my view:   I can try to call it a studio.  So now (for a test)  it is my studio in first place not a dining room.    So I invite my guests in my studio for dinner.  That means I have to clean it up a bit but my creative process can be visible too.  Nothing to hide."

None of our details are the same at all,  but what i loved SO MUCH was the SHIFT she made.  The absolute SHIFT.

and it reminded me of what i know about Points of View.  It reminded me way back to Gelek Rimpoche,  the Lama of Jewel Heart Temple in Ann Arbor,  Michigan who described for us something like in this drawing today.  A central something and then all around,  imagine a rim,  looking down in to the central Something,   Imagine different points of View  around the periphery.  All looking in at the same central scene,  but through different lenses.  All correct.  All different.  All Same, but different, too.

This led me to think about where  i find Self now.  and in keeping with Jude's class progression,  Haven.  Space.  

Before i left N Mex,  there was a lot of conversation.  A lot of intention.   Sincere and Honest.   It's been over a year now,  and we are on Pause.  There are several reasons,  but we are on Pause.   I am here.   In this travel trailer.  I show it to you,  above.  Exactly what it is.    I read this morning a blog post of an author and blogger that i admire  She'd not blogged for some months after her father died and she made a big move from Wyoming to Santa Fe.  She talked of her new place.  How things had gone slow because of renovations to the new place she found,  and more to come.   This fell into place with all the above thinking.

Renovations.   to one's Space.  Creating a space from scratch,  in this case here.  OR .  I thought about being 73 or 72 years,  a give or take,  and how the time ahead is finite.   What's important?     What i know from being here in this extremely SMALL space for over a year is that it has nothing to do really with Making Cloth.  Cloth got made.  Cloth that i love and tells the Story that i have to tell.  That IT has to tell me.  

I'm not much of one for Waiting.  Waiting is the hardest thing.  I like   "getting On with It".   Just Going.

so...the Point of View shifted.  What IF  this is just it?   Is it enough?  Will it work?  Why or Why Not?   These things i am considering.  

I love very much that the advent of Jude's class is bringing all this to the forefront.  It's Perfect.

So,  these pics,  going backward and UP rather than scrolling down.   I posted them backward.   This is my space here.  Right Now.   Maybe it's just ok enough.   Thinking.

now,  go backwards,  UP.