windthread

grateful to be able to be grateful

this is a "sled"  that Jenny found.   She likes things like this.  that are simple,  and work.  Make things possible.   It's just a very thick kind of plastic...or,  whatever something like this is, vinyl maybe?....?   Anyway....this is some of the old straw bedding that i cleared from the Doe Rain Shelter.   Raked into a big pile outside the entrance where it's gotten rained on.  a lot.   Loaded this first batch today and yup,  the sled slid easy and perfect down and around that corner and down to here,  somehow not being bothered by rocks in the way at all,   just slides  right over them.   And.....was easy enough to pull up and through the gate into the B Garden where i unloaded it on the new area for Earth planting in the Spring.   I tried to get a second pic to  "take " here of that but it wouldn't.   I used some of the partially decomposed cardboard from around,  then this.   Will continue every day there's not rain.  There's a Lot more.   Over that will be that last bag of Garden Soil and then that bag of Mulch stuff.   It'll be so Great.    Will use the sled to bring the log branches that  will  be  borders.   Combined with rocks that will hold it all in place.  

ADD:    there are 3 wheelbarrows here.  One of them that i 'd  brought from N Mex.... a prized possession....but wheelbarrows go out of control here in a moment...the Hill....going down,  OR,  such impossible LABOR,  going up

 

 

NPR Weekend Edition  Saturday  11/13    author interview with Azra Aksamija   the book   Everyday Inventions from a Refugee Camp in Jordan

  So much,  but as i worked at this today,  i thought about her telling of the Vertical Gardens there,  in an endlessly bleak and stark landscape where planting Anything in the earth is prohibited.  Repeat...PROHIBITED  And so...the vertical gardens made of whatever can be found rising up against the walls of their one room shed housing  to hold containers,  plastic jugs,   yogurt containers,  to grow  SEEDS they save   that grow Food     Just sit with this a minute.   let it sink in.  

 

 

 

 

you have to wait

till the Cloth says.....This way

and Crow appears

they came late.   almost dark.  All of them,  descending on this Hill that hasn't seen anything like this before.   They had been unavoidably gone to Sacramento ....way longer than anticipated and came LATE to bring the feed...the bales of Grass Hay,  the bags of Alfalfa Pellets

Jeff was standing,  we were talking,  when i noticed and saw.....the butterflies on his left leg....recognized them as T's pants.  Said that .   yes,  he said,  he wears her.  But tonight.   tonight,  there was a forward Energy to that.  Yes.  He wears her but also yes.  She is here in the Goingness of what there is.   We unloaded the feed,  the kids taking turns with the excellent FLASH light, the Fat Max,  easily and well,   taking turns.   Feeding Goats extra pellets,  Fate,  renaming Sunny Ray.....Darling.   I think of this.  Sunny Ray is also Darling.

January ..... 2021

things that seem to be impossible to   "fit"   but then,  somehow,    Do.     in their own way.

indulgence

right away,   the scraps  "named"....    Moons and Owls   .....    and i didn't resist.   Moons and Owls.

 

Seven is very different than Six , i 'd  kept moving them around...they got out of order,  but that's ok?,  

i haven't been able to see the owls.   I hear them.   Their voices and their wings.

Red

 

i've had a lifelong relationship with Red.   i had a red cotton jacket when i was maybe 6 or 7 years old.   That i loved.  it was flannel inside.   And then,  one more red...i think when i was going into 7th grade and we were school shopping at J.C. Pennys.  I was desperate to have a red faux leather vest.   i somehow got it but never wore it.  Ever.   i don't have any memory of that story.  and then...for the rest of my life until just recently,  my relationship with red was  "I don't do red."   but not entirely true,   i did like a very CERTAIN red...my kids had a name for the red i liked...Scab Red.  She likes scab red.    But i didn't even  "do" scab red much.   and then Jude and Spirit Cloth and clothmaking and threads and i looked at red and how just  "so much",  like a single strand of floss,   was really very BeautyFULL.    This is one of the shoulder pads of a blouse that i somehow had in maybe the early 70's.   i never wore it.  just had it.   it was wonderFULL,  the designs on it...like microbes.   i don't know what happened to it.   But always,  this shoulderpad somewhere with the sewing stuff.   

Acey said,  Red.   ok.   i thought and thought i don't really have much or maybe Any red,  but then   Bing!,  i remembered this shoulder pad and this morning went to look for it in that huge ziplock bag of scraps,  the bag that's as big as i am,  really,  that i'd left out in the truck bed  in case of Evac until yesterday,  i thought it must be in there somewhere and when i looked...

there it was.   Right on top.   Sitting there.   Waiting.    

 

She says,  Acey,  

"Find something vibrantly red and create a modest self-regulated stronghold for representation of things you value and know to be true."   ....things you value and know to be true....such interesting and laden words......

"give yourself time to hold yourself steady in contemplation."      hold yourself steady....hold yourself steady

"tune out the noise until you're able to start remembering what that feels like:  authentic inner silence"

 

by the time i got this far with the pics the RAIN was descending heavy,  the light had changed,  everything had changed.  RAIN meaning,  right now,   SAFE.

this far today,  "things you value and know to be true".    The magnifying glass=science.   The Carnelian stone=Earth.  The string of Czech beads=Art.   the Found Magic of the Angel=Spirit.

Science,  Earth,  Art,  Spirit.  

 

 

Gatherings

all over the planet,  this Earth,   there are Gatherings.   Jude took us today to a Place of Gathering...far across this continent.

 

like i haven't stitched,   i also have not come here.

 

i just haven't.

 

this morning i did.   approaching from a distance,  stopping,  standing and saying aloud....I am here.

it's like having been in some kind of self created,  self imposed....container.   maybe because it was like so much was being drained,   continuing daily,  like a slow bleed and then some kind of anemia setting in...anemia of Hope  and i had nothing left to offer of anything real 

i don't know...but i do know that today i went there....first thing.   just standing.  I am here.   and maybe i reserved just enough to say...i am Ready.   Ok.   i'm ready.

i don't expect miracles but there is room to breathe now,  room to begin again.  try again.  and that's all we can ever really hope for...Trying.  Our Best.   i still have some Best left.   

 

how all things are Present inSide the Fire

in a comment 9~23    hermosa said:

"we who live in a fire based ecology are bettered if we come to terms with fire,  a holy element.  For some it is Water, for some it is Wind,  here we are in Fire's domain.  Yes, it can get dangerous  (like deep strong water)   All of us live along side the supreme elements....May we all take heart,  stay well and strong.  Holding on."

so in all those preceding days of not acknowledging this image of Fire...i chose not to look.    I look today.  Closely.  

i think this must be  Kaffe Fassett?   it was gifted quite a longtime ago.  

i would not have paired the two words....ecology~Fire.  I google  Ecology and the most simple sentence:  "the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and their physical surroundings."   i love hermosa's words...fire being a holy element  which i have always "known" but never Known  and still...do not truly know.  I suddenly in these days,  SEE how Fire is shaping us,  Teaching us what can help Us survive....if we choose to learn.

 

words

all so full of Nuance.   We could use the word.....precocious.   or,  trouble.   or,  both.   Sometimes Alyssia leaves her laptop going and falls asleep or goes off to do something.    We can only assume.

Amazon delivered these plastic popbead kinds of things yesterday.  A little box of them...she calls it her Treasure Chest.  She was so so happy to see them.   Turns out she somehow had ordered them....going through the whole process.  completeing the order .No one knew.  But they arrived and she did.

the power of Asking

there was intake of Breath.    i stared.   Suprised.

 

 

(an accidental space,  but....it's also.....true)

 

 Compassion.    not the familiar interpretation i know for three of wands....i stared.  Compassion it said.   then directly to the central image...Mudra,  something i do know and the agelessness of that and the agelessness of the hand,  at first seeming to be of Earth and then of Stone and then back to Earth, to Stone.    Hand.  Ageless Hand of Being.   on the right,  a palm print with heart center....child,   heat.    to the left a hand of age,  butterfly,  rainbow.  i am not any where done with looking at this Collage of  felt/sense images.   All day,  off and on i look.   Tonight,   the Longest Day,  i am looking still.   These two "cards"  say.....stay long here.  Just stay.   Let them speak.  It needs to take time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the next today

i have no memory of this.   Woke this morning to find it.    Maybe at the end of the night,  when trying to close everything Out?  or....maybe a Selfie.  

 

 

Thinking today.   What might it be like if all that is going around in my mind could be said Out Loud,   in this forest?   How would it sound?    If the TREES and understory listened.   What would they hear?   What might it Mean to Them?   What sense might they be able to make of it?,  the ever repeating tapes?   How would   this FEEL to this Forest?