windthread

begin again. we learn to roll with it

waking this morning to a clearer picture of what's happened.   Like a slide show....click   click   click    that began with re seeing yesterday but then  flashing back to even before i got to this Hill Place....it's all such a surprise.   Almost everything that we,  Alyssia,  Jenny and i  (and probably Jenny's man and Julian)  had dreamed up about how things were going to be...aren't.  From where and how we all live,  including Goats,  to Jenny's job changing from part time to full time and sometimes more,  to Emrie as a second child being way more than Alyssia had imagined.  We came into it,  it being  this time of our lives,  each with our own mind movies and then  the communal movie we created  between us and then life played out.  Almost a complete Surprise.   Like this pointed cabbage above.    Yesterday making that so Clear.   Somehow like it's all been Prologue.   And now.....we Begin.  

Being old in California means that i get food stamps.  EBT.   Here it's called Cal Fresh.   and what that's got to do with all this is that at the Saturday Farmer's Market,  the Chico Market  (tho still in Oroville,  just a different place and Sponsored by Chico)  there is a program that matches whatever amount of food stamps you choose to an equal amount of  tokens to spend on food at the market.   So if i authorize $20 on my card  they run it through and give me $40 in little round wooden coins to spend.   This morning i knew we,  Emrie and i,  need to go to the Saturday Market.  I need to let her give the people the card,  and then let them count out the wood coins into a purse thing  that i need to make for her.  a shoulder bag.   and she will pay for what we buy, counting out the coins.   She's very good at counting.     AND i need to go SLOW.   Maybe very SLOw.   In her  bed time  re-cap to Alyssia last night of what she did with Old Nana,  which she tells in great and sometimes surprising detail,   she talked a lot about that parking lot that also was a street.  How there were cars everywhere and it hard to know  how to look left and right before walking and that she didn't feel safe sometimes because she didn't know and how i just kept walking....didn't stop and look left and right.  I had no idea.  So i need to be more ThoughtFULL.   Teach my eyes how to see like hers do.   Stop often,  ask her questions and listen closely to her answers.  For instance:   In that parking lot she did say....it's good we are holding hands.   

and there's more to the Beginning Again of this morning.   i am thinking it's got to do with my interest in  learning how to Pray, which i am seeing includes letting myself be aware of how that desire to Pray ,  works.   For instance:   the other evening,  when i'd finished giving water to all the Plants at B,  i was squatting over the new tiny wisps of carrots that have sprouted up and found self cupping up palms of wet soil and pressing my palms full of wet soil onto my face.....squatting there with wet mud and palms on my face...breathing in...the FEEL of that and breathing in  how a gentle Wind brought the scent of those Scotch Broom bushes and breathing in the sound of Bird voices,     Startling self by the gesture and instantly knowing it was Prayer.  I was praying.   This morning as i was thinking about all the above,  looking out through the window above the kitchen sink,  i saw two trunks of the splaying Oaks linked in an embrace....a kama sutra embrace....      I have looked upon those trees many times before but never seen this.  and i went OutSide to look and saw that it seemed that all the Branches  all over are intertwined similarly tho not erotically,  but lovingly,  reaching out to and through EachOther.   

the pointed cabbage:  i've never seen pointed cabbages before.  I wanted to know about them...but the farmer vendor is Hmong and his language and mine didn't allow for that conversation,  just smiles as i held it up and gestured to it's pointed shape and not even smiles,  but our eyes above our masks  and his nodding and both of us saying things in our own languages,  happy about the cabbage...another kind of praying?  Maybe everything is praying?   

this evening.  More of the breadcrumb trail....On Being.  Interview with Jill Tarter of SETI institute in Mountainview CA   connects with the recent Carolyn Myss.     and back and back to Back to the Garden  Crosby Stills and Nash

 

we did it.

we have bought jam from the Feed Store since i've been here.   It is the BEST i have ever had....from the midwest to the south west to california.   the BEST.   I'd seen on the web for the Farmer's Market that Happy Hens are present and we MET her,  THE WOMAN that MAKES THEM and told her our JOY.  Presently we have Righteous Raspberry.  It was a totally joyous exchange.  For the pic,  she'd gone across the way to talk with another vendor so ....

 

and Finally.    i gave her the key and she opened the box.   nothing but junk mail,  but she was thrilled.  She asked if we could open more boxes.  We talked about that.   All this time...her life time....that she knows.....she had stayed in the car with Julian while Alyssia went in.   When we got here,  she was stunned that we were going IN.   IN.   in front there are many steps.  It's a big building.  it feels like a church.    I said,  as i looked through the stuff....we can throw this out and she was shocked!   NO,  it's Mail!     we took it.   We sat on the steps outside a while.   The Post Office.   We went to.....and   INTO.....the Post Office.

She was amazed.   In the parking lot for the Farmer's Market...she asked...Is this a Street?    At the entry,  there was a sign that said please wear masks and wash your hands  and a kiosk hand washing thing.   PEOPLE.   there were PEOPLE and at every vendor,  she said her name.   I am Emie.   This is Old Nana.   Some of them heard her,  some did not but they were all good and happy people,  happy to be there,  happy for the Day.  How humans can be.   The Saturday Market is the Chico Market and more seriously farming.   This one,   some of that...i got a glorious red onion,  a bag of new summer squash,  a pointed cabbage.  She chose cherries.   and wanted a chocolate personal bunt cake.   There's a lot of Stuff,  tie dye,  things like that and an old geezer who had yard signs and trinkets and it was what she remembered at the end that she wanted...a little Paws Patrol on a string  and he put it around her neck and she said   OH!  it's a NECKLACe?????!!!!!!   He had a yard sign that said    The Asshole's Neighbor....i told him that's what i would buy and he liked that.  He liked that we came back for the Paws Patrol thingy.  Little things.   What you remember at the end of a day.   

she is 3.  going on 4.    She knows relatively NOTHING of this world.    For over a year,  her world has been her house,  the car,  and this Hill.   but......the internet.    She is aware.

i did my laundry.

 

today at B

i think of this as the Dancing Wu Li Masters bowl

 

elegance of eggplant

and i shower outside now.   again.  

 

what they are?.....Are?

they are almost finished.   just some small stitches left to do.    Sat,  looking at them.   Looking at self.   How they somehow are contradictions to the things that Concern me so much....to warring among people,  to the relentlessness of that,  all the daily relentlessness of the unkindness,  the perpetuation of ignorance and UnWillingness....

so what's the deal,  grace? 

how is it that these Cloths are about Joy?    

because i BELIEVE    joy.   I Believe  what i am told,  shown,   day unto day by this Land....the coexisting here,  the Learning.   that holds such Beauty and Goodness.   that Flows from itsSelf  un ending into me and back into its self and then to me again   They are about what Wants to be....what CAN be  what is     Available       and to that i give allegiance.   Cloth is a language of that,  a Place i can go to understand the truth of that 

Cynthia says

 

she says....Gentle Day.

and it was.  Two of them.   They could not have been more Gentle.  More Loving.  More BEAUTy FULL.    We learn.  We learn how to live here.  How to  House Keep.   Alyssia and Emrie were here yesterday and we all walked the creek road  but leaving Tay on the Hill side and Puppy joined her there...

as we walked,  they traveled the Goat paths on the other side.   Water flowing between.   A perfect Hawk Feather.  a large rock Emrie carried,  that she would not share.  I forgot to bring the phone...camera.   We had gone over there to smell Yellow.  Yellow,  Emrie's favorite color,  the Scotch Broom,  Spanish Broom there so incredibly YELLOW  (and yes,  Mo,  invasive) and it's fragrance so enchantingly soft...like babies smell,  just a make you crazy smell

the creek flowing...it's low this year....and warmer than usual  and today we sat to rest down at the CareFree Way cross over and saw TROUT....2 were a foot long....more some smaller and the crazy crayfish.....all sizes 

we had talked about the lack of water....Drought....how the Hundred foot Pine Trees are dropping their immature pinecones...aborting them,   knowing they will not be able to support them,  but  this kind of talk was also soft and there was no FEAR,  just an acceptance of how things are and looking for things we can DO  and the 4ft grasses were mowed at A....how can we help....and studying the Goats , their health,   so today Jenny brought bags of Black Oil Sunflower seeds and tubs for them  that will require feeding by hand,  Goat to Goat because they will be like piranhas about them...will require Trickster .....Margery......and there were two juvenile skinks with neon blue tails,   and so much.   Just so much.   My daughter.  My daughter and i.   Learning to be soft.  Genuine.  Learning to become who we are,  not just our history.     

asking

the drawing board is getting crowded.   Does anyone have an old one they are not using?   I would be HAPPY,  so HAPPY to purchase.   BUY,   I would be happy to buy such a drawing board.   This old kind.  I can't remember the descriptors...press board?   and with no clips.   There are many drawing boards  "out there",  but none of these old ones.     14 x 14 .  Please Email me if you might??????? 

from behind

 

i could not possibly have done this deliberately.   

 

go look

Margery Knott    Sharing Tricksters Hoard    Trickstershoard.com       We are All tuning in to the same frequency. *    Think of the old time radio dial,  turning turning the knob,  all the static  and then suddenly.....clear as a bell  and we know for Sure,  we are not alone.      *or....the Frequency is tuning us in?

to the Gardens

 

i learned today that i have a hard time about saying things

aloud

i can think all manner of things a mile a minute.  but to say something Aloud....is very different.   I Practiced.  I said thing aloud.  The "outcome" of just thoughts  v.s.   spoken word is surprising.   Somehow,  i have the sense that if it's unspoken,  it's   "private".  in privacy.  Known only to me.   not so,  according to Carolyn Myss.   I listened this morning to her    The Power of Prayer  Utube.     So....i agreed to talk to this Being   aloud.   

impermanence but not really....still holding. the non existence of later

before i went to sleep,  i thought about possibilities.  And i ended up  thinking....none would keep Her as she appeared,  on her own.    And i thought about  Impermanence.   Which is the Teaching to follow,  Fire Season being the perfect opportunity.  And i thought about how many  years i have understood that it  is the ultimate Teaching,  the Ground.   and how i have only gone so far.  What do i wait for?   There is no later.

I thought this morning that i wouldn't keep her.   i would never forget her,  how she appeared,  but i would let her cloth simply be cloth.    But then...   there was a needle threaded,    from something else and i just picked it up and  began.   This fold to that and on and through and so randomly,  no concern for    anything   but somehow  holding,   so i could pick her up.  Did not try to hide the threads awkward paths.    And so.....here we are.   this from the Buddha,  from somewhere,  i don't know....  Everything vanishes.  Practice goes on.  i could  so easily cut those threads.  

She

 

was picking up the cloth pieces from yesterday.   this was last and as  i looked down....She looked up at me.    For some days i have been thinking i want to make a Cloth for this Fire Season.   To hold.   To help me learn to live this way and still live fully in the present moment.   as all other beings do,  here.  as the Hill does.   I want to learn to live like Them.   

here She is.   very dimensional.   real.   i cleared the drawing board and eased her on.    The light had changed   The first pic is her second self.    I have no idea what to do next.