windthread

Jude's post. Thinking about it.

just as an example.   This     is a result of what i have learned from Jude Hill.     This.   Whatever it means to anyone else.  Whatever it is they see.   This is where i am.    it's one of the small cloths that i have so far called Invocations.....the definition i use...   "the act of invoking something or someone for assistance".  Invocation.   it's Asking.

they are small.   5x7.   Small Askings.    

they are collages of scraps that speak of a FEELING,   an EXperienCE....something in a day.  A moment.   A realization.  A Hope.     they are a lot...

a hope

they arise from what i have.   Those 13 huge ziplock bags of scrap.    Supersized Ziplocks.   there are many askings therein.   

this is what i have from Jude.   And i am eternally grateful.   Eternally grateful to her for  showing me that i can go here.  Where i am.   Where i am.

 

Rain

i was ready for sleep and it began.   Not the glitter kind from a while back,  but RAIN.    Drops.   of substance,  volume.  Rain.  Plopping on the roof,  the umbrella outSide,  PLOPPING,  these drops,  all over the place.  i listened until i couldn't anymore and went to lay down and sleep.   Waking this morning to

more.

more Rain.

Nothing is wet....it would take so much more,  but it was as if a reassurance,  a promise,  that Earth still knows Rain and will do what is possible to bring Rain again....don't despair....it says.  Things can happen.  

a day...so Much just how it IS anymore

i woke,   thinking about  Guppies.   Where did that come from?????    But i went on with the usual routine of waking....on the internet to see if the world is still here in some familiar form and Tea and then the 20 minute ReSleep,  ReSet but it was still Guppies.    I read this,  Marti's response to Dee's post.... from Joy Harjo's new book..Poet Warrior

"We are all here to serve each other.  At some point we have to understand that we do not need to carry a story that is unbearable.  We can observe the story,  which is mental;  feel the story, which is physical;  let go the story, which is emotional;  then forgive the story,  which is spiritual,  after which we use the materials to build a house of knowledge."

the day proceeded surprisingly intent on unfolding a very large and long story of scenes in my life.  that seemed disparate but were Not,  simply offering the reality of the complexity of   a lifeTime (  including Guppies).   Mid  afternoon,  i took this Cloth and those two stones with me to give water at B.  No known reason.  Just took them.   I set the hose for the flowering People and checked the Janet Chair.    .....   ok,    for this.    Set the Cloth and stones and stood looking,   to see    just on the right,  maybe around 3 oclock a single very very small greyblue most likely breast feather.   Someone had come.

When my kids were little,  like toddlers into kindergarten,  off and on my Brother's then wife would bring their two children the same age,   to live with  us.  Jenny and her cousin Sarah  were tight.     I asked her,  the other day.....What did i used to do with you when you were Emrie's age?    Her response was....Nothing much.  You had installed all those baby gates.  We lived in the dining room.  You threw food to us now and then.  We had eachother.          Which was so so much a Jenny reply.  So her.  So ungiving,   ongoing into this day when we live here on this Hill in California,  all still in our own cacoons,  coming out now and then but going back in,  to    "finish".......but what she got wrong was......how they would say it.  Not....each other,  but

Ourchothers.   When i point this out,  she softens...a smile.  yes.  TheirChothers.

both of them said it that way.   Ourchothers.    it wasn't   Each   Other   but    Ourchothers.   They needed things,  for their chothers that day they decided to run away.   Dragging a dresser drawer up the street to the corner where there was a great stump of a tree,  where they set up housekeeping.   The bag of graham crackers and apricots....food for their Chothers.

and somehow all this.   I Utubed Guppies and found Dexter's World.   How to produce Thousands of different varieties of Guppies.   I LOVE.   Love Dexter.   i think he is in the Philippines?  I LOVE Dexter.   sent her a link.   To this day,  she loves the sound of an aquarium water filter,   the glow of the small light.   the little world  there in.  

 

Friend

have been at Garden earlier in the day....figuring out how to extend the planting space and to plant the Walking Onions.   Also a new stone bed , planted  Cilantro.   Next Arugula.     It's hot,  so as i do these things and give water,  i squat.   for Four days now,  a very small lizard has appeared.   At first,  i thought a young one of the ones i know, because of size.    but then,  Being With more,  i think now this is a different Lizard and a fully mature one.   Yesterday was the longest of the Meetings.   S(he)They  stayed.   On the log,  just inches from my face,  my hand that held the hose.   Was very still and looking AT me,  UP at me.  There was eye contact.   I spoke and they stayed....listening,  looking into my face.   At one point,  i moved my hand,  in a Gesture of contact and S(he) disappeared behind the log  but only to come  up just on the other side of  my hand to continue the exchange.  Like with  the Goats,  i was the one to break the contact,  moving off,  to continue.  Today,  S(he)  was present again,  but fleetingly,  as if to acknowledge,  but also to say....don't expect too much.

i can't carry the phone,  camera,  with me as i do all this,  so the chance of a pic is limited...so i made this drawing.  The Being is smaller than depicted here..  A Very  Small Lizard.   and this,  with the Garden pen.   no fine line.   They have burnt orange decorative dots.

today might be the last of the 100 plus degree temperatures.  Maybe.   Forecast is for a few 90's and then DOWN to 80's.  If so,  Hallelujah

 

 

didn't remember

today again.          Some time ago,    in the effort to consolidate,  within the larger Effort to be Ready,   i dumped all the colored pencils into a shoe box.   From the  Scab Red metal box,  into which i put currently used art things and things like the best awl that had belonged to my grandfather  and  a couple clay  carving tools,  jewelry size screwdrivers   etc.   Julian was the last to use the colored pencils and he hasn't,   in a long time.    I had  forsaken them  for Inktense.    A couple days ago,  Emrie wanted paper when we were sitting OutThere at the  Goat Dust Table while Alyssia was inSide,  switching the ice over in the fridge.   I brought out the shoe box too.   She was thrilled.   And instantly got a Yellow to draw a Sun.   When Alyssia  came out she mindlessly poked her finger around and held up this pen,  saying...you might not want to leave this in here....and i........saw.................it.      and then she found another.  Held it up.  Black.   Sepia

looking at them i was transported BACK some years,  many years,  really.....i don't know exactly....that info has not made itself available to me yet,  but   the  FeltSense of Familiarity was so so strong......

I amazoned and yup...still available...i ordered.  Some black.  Some Sepia.   and when i looked at the word Sepia,  more of this story presented....       i had gotten these  at the Art Supply Store in Albuquerque.    Near the Food Co-Op where i went for Ethiopian Harrar Coffee.    Driving from Polvadera maybe once a month.   During   A TIME.    It was not an easy time.  I remember a moment....on the Freeway....I-25.......driving hard,     Singing Wire  ,  the Native American station blaring,   Drumming,    when as i described it later to  Kay,   Kay Gould Caskey,  my drawing mentor,   i described as  Happy For No Reason.     ALL this flooded up and in and washed over the seeing of this  Pigma Micron 01 pen   

this began what continued today in that half waking place of some kind of understanding of what   Stuff     IS.    That it is not only what    It     IS,   but also,  it carries Time within it.      Place in Time.   Place in Who We Are?,  coming from Who We Were??????  Bringing us to the present Edge?

There is no way i can actively THINK about all this.   It will either become more clear or it won't.   In the meantime,  i will have a more sensitive sense of

Stuff.

I listened to Kitchen Sisters Podcast 171   What Fire Reveals   and from there,  listened to Utube  Grateful Dead Fire on the Mountain...over and over...which took me back to Oregon.   eeeeeeeeeeeeee.    Where i am tonight.   Tomorrow is another day.

Jack,   Jumpin Jack Flash,   FINALLY

accepted a carrot from Emrie.   His First.    Her Joy.      Off to Fire on the Mountain.   version    12-31-78

staying with

i'm tired of making decisions for now.  Going to give it up.   Give it all a break.  Instead of making decisions about what to keep and what to let go of,  in light of Evacuations,    what to continue doing and what to stop doing,  in regard to cloth making,    i 'm going to decide to let go of deciding.   How's that for a convolution?   I'm just going to do ........um........anything.    Whatever any day suggests.    For No Reason.   I like that.   For No Reason.   it's like these small cloths that are.......for no reason other than i love them.   That's  Good enough.   Love is a good enough reason for any Thing.

 

these two

the Matriarchs of this herd.    Officially registered as Crazy Wisdom Dairy.   National Dairy Goat Association.   Official and de facto.  Because they Rule.   It is simply understood.   Oona and Onday are bosses.  They are also looked to as interpreters of circumstance and events.   At moments of confusion or danger or even unsure ness, They act as one.     they  are relied upon.  Looked to.   

i sit in one of the plastic adirondack  chairs some up from the feed shed....three times a day.  Its propped against a tree.    the first is after the morning feed.  I rest there.  Catch my breath.  Look at stuff from that vantage point.   In the morning,  its always Mercy who comes.  Everyone else is scarfing down the grass hay...Mercy comes and stands.  For Touch.    I scratch her forehead,  between and around her ears,  run my fingers down her spine,  on either side,  ending above her tail where i scratch again....it's an intense scratch,  a combination scratch/massage.   I  run my hands down each leg....lift the hoof.   Back to the forehead.  Next leg,  lift,  back to forehead.  Being able to lift a hoof is useful.   She stands,  staring off.   I am always first to be done with this.  i put my forehead against her and say Thank You,  get up and walk away.  Sometimes she stands there a while.

Recently,  maybe 2 weeks?,  3?.... Oona has come.   After the evening feed.   Same ritual as with Mercy.  

For the last two evenings,   Onday has come.   She,  without hesitation comes directly between Oona and i.   Oona does not  object,  but as you can see in her eye above,  she has thoughts.    Onday is one of the first Goats born to Jenny's effort in New Mexico.   She is the first i named.   There were three kids...two bucklings,  to be sold as wethers  and so..."unnamed"  and a doeling,  Onday.   Dixie Cups.... U tube    Iko Iko     Iko Iko Onday.    Onday.   probably for me,   the most deeply loved.   The man who bought the buckling wethers kept their names.   Iko and Iko.   We have been with these Goats a long time.  ALL their lives.

Cloth Love

                                                                                                    a spirit house

cloth.  cloth feels good....the complete engagement once it's begun.  There's a basket here on this table bench...on my left.  On top,  the drawing board and calendars....the round shallow basket of.....current things  which lately have not been current.  Just quiet.   Under,   IN  the Basket is the baggie with all Deb's Threads,   some other things and two zip locks of particular scraps that have accumulated.   Mostly very small,  but this long piece was there and it had been rolledfolded .   tube like.     Once unrolled,  it went ....of its own accord.    No hesitation.   Cloth Love.

now what

language for extreme things

 

this morning....as Sun rose,   i became aware of someThing .....uhhhh....well....a once in a lifetime thing.   The word that came for this was

Excruciatingly   _____.

as luck would have it,   i switched over to the phone and  googled the word....excruciating ...and was startled to see that it has only negative connotation.    That there is no such use as maybe excruciatingly Beauty Full,  or....excruciatingly Tender....

i wanted to say something about a situation being a singular,  stunningly  excruciatingly TRUE thing    But this thing is not bad,  it is just enormously True and Real.   Excruciatingly True and Real and so so Human.   Piercing your heart with Realness.....  And with Love,  really....

this all stopped me in my tracks and i went on with the day,   carrying these two stones,   the pull of energies between them.