reverence

on the left the cut out square remains, above what was underneath, to the right the dyed patch that has replaced first square




http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch3.html

for future reference I copied the link of Bill Moyers' interview with Barry Lopez; I had not heard of either of them until  I read Barry Lopez' story over at Windthread on yesterday's post. I was so impressed by the story I immediately ordered the book and when I went back this morning to look again I read Deanna's comment with said link. I have listened to the interview twice now, second time round I did the stitching of the replacement patch above, maybe the words have an impact who knows? I mean really, who knows? Many things Barry Lopez said hit home, touched my heart strings, struck a nerve..... (and I might add I also loved the questions raised by Bill Moyers, it takes two to make a good interview)  I was nodding a lot and saying YES out loud over and over again, I was filled with happiness, because here is a man, two men who look at the world in reverence. Reverence, yes that is it: we look and see and listen and breathe and eat and sleep and make love and fight and strive and fail and give birth to our children and bury our dead and dream and hope and cry and scream, we live in this world of dark beauty and it is so much. 
Over at Grace's there have been talks of altar cloths and worship and honouring and I think for me the word that encompasses the feeling I have for the world I live in is reverence, 'I and thou'  I quote Barry Lopez, if and when I look at my dog as thou, we are looking at each other with reverence. When I find a dead animal and see the thou-ness of that animal, it is with reverence that I take him home with me.
Over a year ago an owl got caught in our chimney and died. I left his remains in a bucket for this past year and water and time and tiny creatures cleaned him for the most part. I emptied the bucket this afternoon, it still smelled quite awful, but undeterred I picked out as many bones I could find and have cooked them in a pan, one of my dyeing pots on the cooker outdoors to clean him up a bit more and get rid of some of the stench. This what Owl looks like;  amazing how small his skull is without flesh and feathers.

thanks to 'I and thou' I jumped up and started dancing to Tori Amos' Cornflake Girl and Tungsten joined in: we were dancing dog-woman dance

three kittens from her womb and a little fish-bird