Off-target

   I'm trying out an open source, vector-based drawing application--Inkscape--since I am pretty much useless with a pencil. I want to convert images from photos or from my feeble attempts with a pencil into plain black and white in order to make stencils or other block print designs for the cloth that I've been dyeing.
   So the whole evening has gone to playing with filters and figuring out what button does a job I vaguely remember a similar button doing in Illustrator. Because I have so much time on my hands to learn another program that I won't have time to use.
   I have a real talent for finding tangents and rabbit holes and almost no talent at all for approaching any actual goal.

   But at least I was able to make a graphic about it.

   This is going to be a very busy work week, so I don't expect to have any more time to think about this. Come on, weekend!

A real rabbit hole, I presume.

   The thing about rabbit holes is that there is never only one way out. More paths than destinations.

about rabbit holes:

more paths than destinations

easy to get lost

   Yup. I really haikued that. Or I really didn't.

Deep in August

   I went to walk by the river in the local state park today. This was a hot day, but not the 95F that was threatened. Unfortunately for the misanthropist in me, many many other people were also lured into the beauty and the park was as packed as I've ever seen it. I was happy that so many people were enjoying themselves, but it was impossible to find a quiet corner for selfish aloneity.
   There was still enough water to sing over the stones and to cool tired feet. Kids were having the time of their lives plunking pebbles and screaming at the splash.
   The forest has been saved from annihilation so far this summer by continuing morning fogs. It is unusual to have so much moisture in the air this deep into August. And yet, there was a constant light fall of gold leaves this afternoon, as though the sycamores were tired of it all and just want to move into autumn as quickly as possible.
   I agree with the trees, for this year, anyway. Weathermen promise rain, but four years of drought makes me want to tell them not to raise all our hopes. Maybe they are trying to subtly warn us to fill the sandbags early, on the off chance that their computer models are actually right. Wet, dry, it seems we are in a period of extremes, where blessings can and are expected to turn into disasters.
   My, I thought I was in a good and peaceful mood when I began. Beneath the surface is always a river of worry. But below that: a spring of unquenchable joy, if I will only let go of grasped straws and sinking paper boats, and dive down to find it.
   If only.

The Perseids were a bust again around here. I can count the falling stars I saw in the entire last two weeks on two hands, and that's including going outside at around 1 a.m. during the peak on three different nights. The night sky is, however, not without its rewards, whether or not pieces of dust hit the atmosphere. Leaning back in a sky-watching chair with a glass of wine or a blanket opens one up to the contemplation of matters other than paying the bills and wondering if I'm living up to my potential. So. That's what I'm going to do right now.

   Fuzzy boots--check.
   High school football game blanket--check
   Kitty jumping off the roof and settling in my lap--not check yet, but soon will be.

Cattails

What is their form, their

habit? From the mud arise

stalks. Heads split and...poof!

Not my picture; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cat-Tails-Lake_ForestWander.JPG; credit where credit is due.

 

Early to bed

A rare free evening. So many ways to spend it! So I think I will go to bed before midnight for the first time in weeks. One last look at the Milky Way. Secretly hoping to see a shooting star, but not admitting it. Except just now when I'm not out there looking anymore.

I sound like a person who needs to go to bed early.

Deery, deery me

    So Wednesday night we were outside having our hearts broken by the absence of meteors at the peak of the Perseids when we heard what sounded like someone squeezing a very sad squeak toy over by the dying pomegranate bush. Over and over. Weird and a little scary almost. We snuck quietly back into the house for a flashlight and shone it around the back yard.
    Over by the fence was a fawn--crying for his mommy!
    We turned off the flashlight so as to avoid scaring him anymore and leaned back into our star-watching chairs very quietly. After a bit, there came the sound of careful steps through dry grass, and...no more squeaks.

    I didn't know deer made any vocal noises at all. Did you?

Water

picture by E.N.; words by C.N.

Dyeing to dye

No stories came to mind over the weekend, but I did take a few hours on Sunday afternoon to dye some items of clothing that I got from Dharma Trading Company. The colors don't show up accurately in the pictures, and the Kilt Green button shirt came out quite pale. Different cotton fabrics take up dye differently, and there's no getting around it. I think I may re-dye that shirt with twice as much dye and salt and see if it will develop a richer color.

Procion dyes, clockwise from top: Indigo Blue, Kilt Green, Imperial Purple, and Timber Wolf

The blue and purple match the color chips in the catalog and online pretty well. The Timber Wolf is a gray blue in the catalog but more gray in real life. The Kilt Green...I think it would be very pretty if it were darker. It isn't bad as it is, a pale pine green really, but I'm just not a pastels kind of gal. So yeah, re-dyeing (ok, all you real dye people: overdyeing) is probably in this shirt's future.

Not an outfit that I would ever wear in public, but the colors are lovely.

A lot too subtle

I've got several more pieces to dye, and ideas for block printing/stenciling/sun dyeing.

Are you still with me? This has got to be the most boring post. It was much more fun to work on the stuff than it will be to read about.

** ** ** ** **

The Perseids are supposed to be picking up tonight. I expect, however, that they will break my heart again, as they have for the last twenty years. I've scheduled whole camping trips around this meteor shower and never once has it met any kind of hopes or expectations. They're supposed to peak in the next couple of days. One problem is that they are supposed to be visible to the northeast, and to the northeast is where a great bit tree sits covering up an eighth of the sky. Still. I'm going to go enjoy the early night while it is still enjoyable and see if I have any luck.

Just curious

What does it mean to call oneself wild? Does it mean to do what you want always? Is this just another way to say free, whatever that means in a world where your freedom stops where mine begins, and there are so very many mes?

What does wildness accomplish? It seems like a game. Always playing. A way to stay inside the world in your head. Or just a schtick.

How would you be wild without a safety net? Let someone else worry about putting food on the table. And unless you plan to take up sewing and build a foundry in the back yard and raise sheep and mine your own titanium, you are going to have to pay someone else to do these things for you.
How wild is that?

Or is wildness internal? A wildness of the heart, a sense of adventure, a feeling for the world behind the world.

Finding the magic, or being the magic?

What is the secret?

Just wondering.

Exceedingly rare summer storm

Sudden flash and grumble
wind-borne fanfare
      and before the echo faded
not just a sprinkle
but a deluge
I set my cup to catch raindrops
      and drank from the sky

Side trip

So. Adventures with Gelli plates and monoprinting.

Paint and I are nearly strangers, so this project seems more like a side road than the main highway to wherever it is that I think I'm going. There is a lot I need to learn about technique, as in how to spread the printing "ink" on the plate so that the colors mix thoroughly and there isn't still a blob of brightest color right where it first got squirted. The next thing to master will be registration to get the second image to land right on top of the first pull. (Pull = printer-speak for each time you lay the paper on the paint and lift it off.) However, my lack of technical know how resulted in about as many accidents as sheets of paper, some happier than others. I think that mixing paint colors on a palette or something before putting it on the plate would give me more consistent colors.

I think I have just about gotten to the end of my preemptive apologetic caveats for what you are about to see.

 

Mars?

Neptune?

Nevermore...

or never say never?

And that's really enough to inflict upon anybody.

I can see that this kind of work requires a whole different kind of thinking than I am accustomed to. New materials, new techniques. I am particularly proud of the raven. I drew it very fast on the back of a magazine cover that seemed heavy enough to be used as a stencil and it turned out to actually be recognizable! No one is more surprised than I am!

*  *  **  *  *

I went to the beach after work today for the first time all summer. 
 

I went to the beach

after work today, for the

first time all summer

Someday I will write real haiku with subtle seasonal references and the little turn that makes you see the world in a new way. For now, I am noticing how many thoughts arrange themselves into seventeen syllables. And not just my thoughts, but the world:

five, seven, then five

gulls then cormorants then grebes

a floating poem

Blue moon

My head is so full of ideas for projects I can hardly pick one to actually do. I have some block printing ink to experiment with, and something called SolarFast, which is a sun-activated dye that you paint on fabric and then place a photo negative over, or some other objects or stencils, and whatever you've placed show up on your T-shirt or whatever you've used.

A little bit incoherent here--lots of work (which presents the usual good news/bad news scenario) and a wedding party for a wonderful couple under beautiful redwoods AND live Irish music earlier this evening. So, as some relative or other used to say when I was a kid, I'm too pooped to pop.

Writing isn't really happening much these days. Both of my jobs consist of words, words, words all day long. The torrent of other people's words sort of washes my own words away. So of course I am sitting here typing at 11:25pm.

Another blue moon

and everybody goes wild...

all moons are sacred

 

Now. If it really

looked like this, I could see the

big deal. It's just a

mathematical 

trick of our calendar that 

makes it seem special

Our bright companion

sublime, beautiful, wondrous

The moon is. Always.

Hoping for a refreshing night of sleep. You have one, too.