windthread

this

what i thought i wanted to say turns out to be not at all what i want to say and it's too LATE to let the saying flow of Its Own Accord 

so.    Just the pic for today.   India Flint.   recognizable anywhere.  India Flint.   bumped into this pic in the Archives.  13 years ago  i was found by her work.   Her magic.  The incredible Beauty.      Tomorrow, then.  

 

TUESDAY...the tomorrow referred to above,   and i was gone all day,  came back with my head full of the world.   So    I want to just keep this here again.  I can't quite "touch" what i want to.  

One More Time   WEDNESDAY.    13 years.   Finding Spirit Cloth,  Jude Hill and through her,   India Flint.    Finding OUTSIDE of me,   things of my Self,   familiars.   In the case of Spirit Cloth,  SEEing.   India Flint,   FEELing.    and so...those 13 years.    In looking to see where i am this year,   what i find is the thing of Diorama which goes back to my childhood,  to the creek,  the Michigan woods.    Diorama...not as other but as Self.  and self not  In,    but self OF.   

India Flint's books.   Eco Colour     Second Skin

there is no Spirit Cloth book.   i wish there was.   to hold in my hands,  carry.   not an image on a screen,  but a page.  paper.

it's beginning

the Soaproot.    Moths will come.   I love imagining this,  Moths fluttering in the Garden  in the Dark of Night.   

work day

pounding Tposts along that last stretch of rim along the steep  hill of the creek  that had

remained unfenced...no need because of Tay.    No Tay,  so now,  need.

Kids learn independent play.   double click

Lucky Star, the eldest

a bouquet for this day

I woke,  put on the kettle,  looked at the headlines,  made the tea    ...   read Jude's post.   read it again.   stared.   what was i seeing?   drank the tea while continuing to look and wonder.   As has become my habit,  went back for the "Little Sleep".  20 minutes and waking again,   as it always seems to go,   i   understood   something.   This time it was  set into motion by the pic in her post that  didn't have anything to do with what i thought i saw....it was instead,  an answer to what i hadn't even asked.

about how things have come to be  in the last months...no order,  no plan,  no figuring out.   Learning to live like that.   Learning to 

live.   just live.   Live the day,   As Is.

the bouquet is from a quart zip lock of scraps that i had tucked in there as i went along with the Spiral Blanket,  there are 2,  one for those a  bit larger.   They have stayed in the Ready to Go Evac Basket at the end of the table bench.  i  just left it there all winter.   Here it is again.  Fire Season.   That winter of RAIN,   the repeating Atmospheric Rivers,   the GREEEEN of the last month and now the sudden browning,   Fire Season.    Somehow,  Jude's post was a key.   to seeing how i am ready to do it all differently.  and how i don't know at all what that means.   But it is not about figuring anything out.  but rather,  just living.  Every day,  in love with Life.   As Is.

caring

so after re~potting,   she kept Just Going...continuing to form her bloom and then Bloom.   Her obvious child there now in it's pot next to her.

 

in the process i took the buried  Hopefulls  and just plopped them in some earth in half filled  pot and dropped a piece of wet cardboard on them so they woudn't have to lie there exposed.   Each time passing by i thought of them but didn't want to look.  Just soaked the cardboard and let X=X   as Laurie  Anderson sings.

 

well,   Life wants to live.   

And.....Gumweed

photographer...Cory Maylett  via Wikipedia

Also,  on the glorious Saturday,  i asked Matthew if he knows any herbalists in town...no,    but  one in Paradise,   he would message me.   and he did.    her website   Wildharvestedesthetics.    I look and is a beauty Full site but most  "beauty" products,  toners and elixers yet,   near the end,    Gumweed Healing Oil.   I search.

first   Native Memory Project :   Indigenous uses       secretions to relieve asthma, bronchitis, colic.   boiled extract of leaves and/or flowering tops relieve saddle sores and raw skin.  Consumed as tea in attempt to cure tuberculosis and again as tea to relieve coughs and as expectorant,  to    treat dizziness.

Next    excerpt from Jim Conrad's Naturalist Newsletter:   on stems 4 to 7 ft tall it produces clusters of green, spherical flower buds about the size of quarters.  The  buds scales (involucral bracts)  end in outwardly flaring spinelike tips that might dissuade a browsing herbavore.  The very unusual thing however is that at the bud's very top there's aways a sizeable gob of very sticky white latex,  like milkweed milk.   This gummy stuff keeeps out bugs that might otherwise enter the bud and eat the all important, tiny composite flowers.  When the flower finally opens,  the youngest immature flowers remain safely immersed in latex.   Only when they mature to the point that they need pollinators to visit does the latex disappear,  leaving normal looking dry flowers.   Treats Poison Oak  

i order .   then call and leave a long message  explaining how i am looking for someone who can make a healing salve like the much valued  one from TakingRoot,  Lani,   that Cynthia  and i love so much,   no longer available.     She returns the call and it is WONDER FULL...she,  so much like the young man Saturday,  the exchange so easy.   She asks many questions  about my toes,  about my experience with Plantain,   we talk about those specifics,  but also the nature of the healing mind of the plants and she is extremely knowledgable in both the  Spirit and the Science of medicinal plants.   it ends in that she will make this salve,  having all the ingredients ...EXCEPT  Plantain!,  but she explains how to continue with it  as i have been.   She comes into town sometime this week and will even drop it off!   

i could not hope for more.   

this experiment i'm living

printer hadn't been turned on in over a year,  never really used.    this is first sheet that came of test print...i told her to keep it and it turns out it's perfect for what i imagined doing....the  "drawing Into"  .   Used  #2 pencil...just very small marks,  just to see what change Very Small might make...will continue with this.    Micron pen,  the black/white border of the plate.   

top right  white Inktense pencil to draw one of the Essential Beings and it's barely there,   can you see it?   Exactly how they are to me.  Perfect for how things feel in the Garden  these last weeks

 

held up to light coming in the window and things became more defined   BUT/AND  the Essential Being disappeared.

back to that You Tube i LOVE...   Slomo:  The Man Who Skated Right Off the Grid  Op Docs   New York Times,   he says                 "everybody has the capacity to dream up anything he wants to.   The shrinks call it a personal delusional system and you believe it because you choose to."  

World Meditation Day 2023

 

Om Mani Padme Hum

an extraordinary glorious day addendum below

how it goes these days lately.   somehow i look on that local FaceBook page and see that there is a Second Annual Flower Show  of the      Oroville Botanical Garden and Education Center   .   That it is just short miles from here.   That you buy a ticket there for an extended Tour of gardens around town that are participating.    One of which is of Matthew Trumm.   In town.  the street just behind the Post Office.  it's $10.   ok,   i buy on line and go there this morning,   some miles down Miner's Ranch Rd which is the crossroad just down at the intersection by Lakeside Grocery.   It's at what i am guessing is an old Grange Hall from the 30's  there are several women of a certain age greeting you as you enter...so GLAD you have come...warm and welcoming....and then the tables of flower sprigs.   Like what i am familiar with at a State Fair.   the plain clear glass bud vases on long tables.  Each a single stem.    There is a feeling to it,   these many vases with the best bloom of the many human beings who grew them.   It's about Love.   Each sprig is loved  and OFFERED  here for SHARING of that love.   This one,  Lamb's Ear.   

 

I didn't  do that tour but go on to Matthew Trumm's place in town,   on the street just behind the Post Office.   I went there once before.   The year i got here.   Having googled permaculture,  Oroville CA.   Had,  in my naive days engaged him to consult about this Hill.   We all walked.  Him  me  Jenny  Alyssia and Emrie in a belly sling being just new born.   He drew us up a 

plan

His place in town is nothing less than Magic.  1/3 acre of ordinary city back yard transformed into a  labyrinth WonderLand.   it seems like a whole world,   like you can wander there forever.   You can type him in on FaceBook     Matthew E. Trumm   Treetop Permaculture.     A woman had his attention when i arrived.   She had a Thousand Questions and was not shy about taking up ALL TIME AND SPACE  which she did,  and i walked the paths and listened in.   and then  a man,   70's  was  "next",  his turn,  and  i listened in to that too,  to his absolute JOY at being there,  seeing the Magic of it,  also having a zillion questions  and when he finally was ready to go he apologized for taking space but repeated again how so HAPPY he was to find this resource and i piped up that his Happiness had also become mine and Thank You for this

and woven through all this was    conversation   with a young man,  maybe 30 at most ,  who was the Co Op Food Box person and it was SUPREME,   talking WITH him,   it's been SOOOOOO   LONG   since a  free flow CONVERSATION with someone i don't know but immediately clear  IS a Kindrid Spirit  about dogs and Grateful Dead and the magic of Plant Intelligence and grief and beginning again...his home was burned and he and his wife begin again...they live in Berry Creek

ADDENDUM    Do you ordinarily ENLARGE ,   as in double click the Pics?    That Lambs Ear.......

 

 

 

and more and more       and more and more   

my life is so solitary.   A day like this just SHINES and SPARKLES