A May Stray.
Darker, but then, seeing in some new way. Nothing has gone as imagined this season. Maybe because it is in so many ways, well, different. Even though so much is really the same. I sat with this one on and off. Whenever there seemed time. Just going. Riding a Wave of Going. I just named it.
Spending so much time alone has me thinking about how much I like to be alone. But then, I think I need less to maintain, this place is a lot of work. It eats up all my alone time. Ha, now I am laughing.
I finally got to some dyeing yesterday.
But the vat ran out of steam. And then, I just wandered off in my mind, which happens so much lately. It is probably some kind of processing. The in between of that.
I have started to wear gloves, I don't mind the blue hands but my skin is too dry to handle the constant contact with the vat.
There were extra garden stakes and they came in handy.



I have so many thought about alone. Sometimes it’s too easy to choose, at least for me. Taking care of a house and garden/land by yourself…that really is about finding a balance of what is manageable. Sometimes it feels overwhelming but there is so much to love about it too. 🙂
Yes, somehow love makes it possible.
The alone time is sacred. I get really irritated with expectations these days. After 71 years I want/need to make my own expectations. No matter if there is food or not. lol. I’d rather be alone and hungry than full and irritated.
Ha!
She is pregnant with hope, riding the waves of life.
I run out of steam a lot lately. The golden years…..
The birthing aspect is nice.
My steam loss is mental I think…
It’s been a few years since I’ve had any alone time, no exaggeration. It’s just how my life has gotten to be lately. I think I would have big plans for it but when I finally find some, I know I usually can only stare into space and let my mind do whatever it is it’s been trying to get to through the noise of constant interpersonal communications. (I also remember how it was, years ago, to be very lonely even though I wasn’t alone).
Yes, it’s confusing really. Has more to do with mindset than physical conditions.
Love the criss-cross blues!
She looks like me for the last almost two years. But, in her darkness, I see bits of internal and external light and so very much beauty. Let’s hang on to that. 💕
It’s always there…
Thanks for the photo with the garden stakes, Jude. I finally have a sense of the actual process.
It can get messy!
That is a very wise understanding, Jude.
It’s nice to slow down into what it is.
A favorite quote from Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce comes to mind….”Whenever I am with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone, can I fully enjoy my own company.”
Amen Sister.
oh yes. and it took me so very long to figure that out. but covid came along which was when I had that realization.
We are different alone…
We can be ourselves alone
Yes. Unless we are afraid of ourselves, that must be awful 😖
Beautiful batch of indigo cloth dyeing! 💙💙💙
Working on it, need more time! Ha!
So much change at one time. It’s a challenge to process all the areas of life it affects.
Is that the pot your dye stays in year round?
in older age we have such a long history with certain things. But newness might be a kind of food I guess.
Yes this is the pot I am using now, it was used for preserving, but now for the vat. It stays on the porch. I have another bucket in the basement that I use to make quick vats in the cold weather.
May Stray….no words she says
… and I stand still as I listen…So luminous .
Utterly captivating.
i do like the light and dark as it happened.
Moody. Going. Seeing where the want takes you. Sounds like my kinda Self! This is glorious!
Moody can be enriching
Riding a Wave of Going…how perfect. The longer I look at this piece the more emotions I feel. Sadness, hope, more adventures ahead. Funny how your creativity brings out the longing to bring more soul into mine.
the deep stuff is where the voice is. And it can get so buried. Somehow letting it out might be a comfort or even a tool for others, at least I think about that a lot.
that dark stuff needs attended too. Or it grows underneath like those damned cicadas and might explode decades later to scream incoherently and take us by surprise and might not make a lot of sense out of context. Sometimes there’s just no more room down there and it has to get out somehow…..
Love Riding a Wave of Going, Jude! It’s dreamy…
I love being alone, “living in my head,” as the Brontes referred to it.
I do too, but it is different when it is not a choice.
I can see that…