Joyful Stitching

ruby-throated hummingbird nest

 

Just two paragraphs of a beautiful article about ruby-throated hummingbirds. (in Georgia).

"Construction begins with a female attaching bud scales and other tiny bits of plant materials with spider webs to – usually – a tree limb. In some instances, the bird will even use pine rosin to glue the nest to a branch. The slender silk found in tent caterpillar nests is also used in construction. The bottom and sides of the nest are comprised of a variety of materials, such as the down found on dandelions, thistles and other plants. However, bud scales are a key component of ruby-throat nests.

Each item used is meticulously wrapped with spider webs and attached to the nest, making the structure both strong and flexible. The whole process requires the tireless female to make innumerable trips to collect plant matter and spider webs. For that reason, when you spot a female hovering near the spider webs under the eaves of your home, there is a good chance she is collecting pieces to help build her nest."

The complete article at the link below.  

Out My Backdoor: Ruby-throated Hummingbird Nests Are Special

Chatting with a neighbor about hummingbird feeders (during heart like "7 inches from the noon-day sun"~ thank you Santana), and the keeping of hummingbird's health with feeders etc.  Both of us found this article (link below), to add to our love-of-hummingbirds knowledge base.

Out My Backdoor: Hot Nectar Can Pose Threat to Hummers

A week or two ago, I sat down on my concrete bench in early morning coolness before the heat, with a cuppa.  Almost immediately I was dive-bombed by a ruby throated hummer. End of summer flies were whizzing around as they do, and the hummer started circling the batch of flies, then dive bombing and eating flies with such accuracy, that I sat still for 15 or 20 minutes, just watching in awe and amazement.  Hummer kept circling the batch of flies (gnat size), swooping away a few feet, then turning and  hurtling through the air and snatching a fly, and continued. Mesmerizing. Me and a bird,  it was truly a hummer aerial "dog fight". Then, the hummer went straight to the fuchsia hanging basket - watered a few minutes before", went to each fresh blossom, and was gone. It's not a very good description that I've written - but it added to those  so many joyful moments in my mind's collection of  those "pictures not taken". 

I think this particular hummingbird had a nest high up in my old crabapple tree. I looked at it several times through my old binoculars, and the next builder had obviously (to me at least) had used lichen. Thrilling to see - only one I've ever seen. One of the bazillion wonders of the world. I have such admiration, gratitude and respect for the people who take these photographs. They are also "wonderous".

 

 

 

I'll leave the light on for you...

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely."

Quote above is from this blog post:   “We Were Made For These Times”   Text ©Clarissa Pinkola Estes, ©Katherine Brenner,©Patricia Spangler.

 

A small book, of one person's life, small acts so powerful. I wear my red bandana/kerchief often, to remember and honor him.

 

A 30-second phone call that morning ~ "leave the light on for me, Mama". and "if"..."play Spirit in the Sky". I promised.  These vintage kerosene lamps, from my Mama, and paternal grandmother, on the window sill of my "window that opens". Always ready, always leaving the light on. Honoring with deep gratitude, other Gold Star mothers and fathers. So many...

My sister Destiny Swiftdeer was there, a trauma team member.

"... To remember is not to rehearse but to hear what never has fallen silent...". ©W.S. Merwin, "Learning a Dead Language".

From the book What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? ©John Hausdoerffer, Brooke Parry Heccht, Melissa K. Nelson, and Katherine Kassouf Cummings, editors.  Chapter is To Hope of Becoming Ancestors, quote on page 107. 

This artist plays the sounds - feelings, vibrations, physicality of emotion, my heart's rhythms, my core values, my memories/story. "Revolutionary Etude". Etude in C  minor op. 10 no. 12.  Chopin. 

©Klaudia Kudelko, Eastwood Studios, and all others listed at site.

This piano piece is one of the first that I played in public, more than 65 years ago. First time playing on a Steinway Grand (sounding board of Alaska Sitka Spruce). A shy skinny girl - a hick from the sticks - un-tamable hair - vintage black velvet dress, among the "big people". Imagine that if you can... The music still burns deep, the power and majesty. history, passion. When I could still play this piece (and others), I was aware of nothing else ~ the music, the piano, and me.  On "that day", I played this piece on the humble piano in my home at that time. The music said what I could not speak.

7 patches on white

There are seven days in a week ~ not a "someday" in it. ©Benny Lewis.

 Benny Lewis quotes ~ Goodreads.  

 

7 - patch. Laying on yellow table, light at dusk. no smoky skies.

 7- patch: hanging outside in smoke-haze ~ custard yellow sky/fog/defused light.

I thought I had framed, or put in a cloth book, but had no photographs. While unfolding some white fabric to launder for a sewing project, this piece was folded inside. From a long while back.

Some "rust marked" pieces. Lower left corner, some fabric scraps of a sort "poet shirt" my Mother made, well worn and well loved. Jude Hill's "glue stitch". Shadow embroidery, french knots, bullion knot roses, feather stitching, kantha-type stitching. 2013. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tart, Tender, and Unruly

 

Crab apples ~ from a very old tree,  and bearing beautifully even though I wasn't able to prune properly last season.  This tree is a delightfully shady tree when the sun is on it's downward slope in the west - heat season.  All kinds of birds nest in this tree, winter birds and squirrels feast on the crab apples during cold weather. Mosses and lichen abound, it is an old tree after all. Photo taken 8-20-2023.

I've run on and on about mosses, lichen and so on, in a previous post -  of trees and squirrels . I suspect I shall do so again...

 

Leaves at season "turn", on old crab apple tree. Year after year, the seasonal change occurs nearly the same time as the crab apples are ready to pick, or leave for birds, squirrels, or to feed (after decomposition) creatures of the soil. Extraordinary experience to watch, year after year.  Photo taken 8-20-2023

Crab apple tree limb that fell during a humdinger of a winter storm. Beautiful lichen and fungi, and small areas of mosses. Photo take 4-24-2023. 

 

And crab apples are definitely one of those "difficult fruits"....

This little book is just so up my "alley"!  It is a tremendously good read - author weaves her personal and  anecdotal occasions of "meeting" these fruits, then explores (alphabetically) how to use these "difficult" fruits.  A daughter called late one evening, asking what I was reading, so I sent her this photo. Imagine for a moment hearing loud and riotous laughter as she says "good way to describe your self, Mama"! Ahem, I "snorted" my tea!  one of those 100% joy-full moments, the kind you tuck away in your memory bank. One gets those kind of moments along with the mind's "slide show" of memories - seemingly random and unpredictable, but oh so welcome. And a truth ~ a person never gets to see themselves as others do! In my case, that might be a "good thing"!

Maybe your library has this book, or can inter-library loan - think you might enjoy it! 

let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me...

 

 

 

Go figure...

just feelin' the urge. or maybe it's a still, small voice. Maybe cuz life just sometimes blows a person's socks off! Tells you that it is not the time to to stop whistlin' , and if you've stopped, get whistlin' again.  Time to get those bare feet putting one step in front of the other, even if the path is rough and rocky, and you do not know where it might take you, it's "where you've been going all along"!  It's your opportunity ~ it is time ~ to walk The Camino de Santiago. Where you are now, with what you have.

I'm here "now". Maybe this is my Camino de Santiago. Right here.

From 'For the Road to Santiago'
Is Still Possible"
©2022 David Whyte & Many Rivers

Photo by @sattvaphoto
www.davidwhyte.com

For the road to Santiago,
Don't make new declarations
about what to bring
and what to leave behind.
Bring what you have.
You were always going that way anyway.
you were always going there all along.
David Whyte ~ instagram

"Three steps forward: Faith, Hope, Charity (love, kindness). Two steps back: Pain, Sacrifice."

From Father Scott Connolly, describing some of which he learned and absorbed during his pilgrimage ~ walking the Camino de Santiago. 

A brief discussion of Father Scott's pilgrimage. Summer pilgrimage ~ Camino de Santiago

 

Crow, Trying to fix up his Old House

Rather than show photographs of the two pieces of Lillian Pitt's work that I have, I will let her writing, and two of my favorite Lillian Pitt artworks, speak for her. She is a legendary and deeply respected First Nations artist and Elder. Lillian Pitt: Native American Artist.

"Lillian Pitt’s mixed media art reflects Native American culture of the Columbia River Gorge, and helps to give voice to her ancestors.

No other medium is more fun for me to work with than mixed media. The creative possibilities are endless.

I mix new objects with old objects, contemporary and traditional, steel with porcelain, beads and feathers … you name it, anything goes.

As with all the types of art I create, my mixed media art reflects Native American culture of the Columbia River Gorge. But when I mix media, I’m sometimes able to elaborate a little more on the story. I can jazz it up a bit, add a different twist or angle".

—Lillian Pitt

 Crow, Trying to fix up his Old House.  Photograph ©Lillian Pitt. 

Lillian has created hundreds of unique mixed media pieces over the years, but she still remembers the stories of how most of them came about. Here, for example, is her story about the piece titled Crow, Trying to fix up his Old House .

I collect old things and objects from nature that look interesting to me, and then I wonder how they can be used. I collect shells rocks, metal containers, wood … whatever. I’ve become a real pack rat.

And all this stuff just sits around my studio while I keep looking at it and picking it up, and wondering what I’m going to do with it … until finally, an idea comes.

So an artist friend of mine, Rick Bartow, knew I collected old things and gave me an old piece of wood he thought I might like. Eventually, I ended up putting Crow on it. But it took a while to figure out what to do.

The board was cracked, so I fixed it up with copper wire. And this made me think of my old home in “Hollywood.” That’s what we called the place on the Warm Springs Reservation where we lived when I was a young girl. It was a joke of course because all the homes there were old and dilapidated, and we were always trying to patch them up with whatever types of odds-and-ends might be laying around over there.

But now I had the idea. The crow I ended up with on that old cracked board, was just like the beautiful people I knew growing up on the Warm Springs Reservation, who were always trying to fix up their old houses.

            —Lillian Pitt

 

River Guardian: South Waterfront, Portland, Oregon. Photograph ©Lillian Pitt.

River Guardian has two faces. One looks toward the river, the other toward land. The two faces indicate that she watches over the safety of people both on the river and land.

About River Guardian Project

The project was commissioned to commemorate a community development effort along the South Waterfront Greenway Park in Portland, Oregon. The commission resulted from a joint effort between the Portland State University Native American community, and the Portland City Parks.

River Guardian watches over all of the people in the area where she is situated, within the South Waterfront neighborhood of Portland, along the Willamette River.

She is the result of a collaboration between Lillian Pitt and Mikkel Hilde.

River Guardian’s body is made of copper and steel, and her head is made of lead crystal glass. Her headdress is made of steel. She is 9 feet tall.

    ~Lillian Pitt ~ River Guardian

 

See a few more beautiful pieces of Lillian Pitt's art here:  Art in the High Desert ~ Mixed Media

 

Attribution notice: all photographs and intellectual property ( quoted content) of ©Lillian Pitt.

yarrow ~ fanning the flame within

 

 

 

Photograph © 2010-2020 Ravensong Seeds & Herbals, All rights reserved.

Following is an excerpt directly from the linked blog.

“What if you could be so light to jump as Heron does into unpredictable wind freely, trusting you would be able to land again?”

YARROW | FANNING THE FLAME WITHIN

Yarrow in particular calls us to face the hard truths and shadows; and rise to meet them with an integral spirit. Yarrow seems to extend an invitation to celebrate and find peace and wholeness with who and where we are, presently.  Yarrow leads by example solidifying strength and determination in the self, enhancing its ability to remain content and express such contentment. 

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” - Kahlil Gibran

Yarrow’s innate spirit, just as the Heron’s innate wisdom guides it to trust when to be still and wait and when to take flight and soar, we too can trust the light of nature within. It takes courage and presence to do so, to transmute heaviness into spaciousness, so our bodies become more alive, our minds more clear and our hearts more compassionate. 

Let us all be guided by yarrow’s wisdom inviting us to let go and pack lightly for our journey in this life, all while caring deeply; enjoying fully.  The flame of resilience is ablaze in our hearts, fuelled by the grace of gratitude and fanned by our fierce and feathery friend.

Content is 100% the intellectual property of, and copyrighted by Harmony Pillon. *

*Firesweed School and Farm is currently closed.

 

 

 

of trees and squirrels

Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) leaves. beautiful ~ wonderful resource for eco-dyers.

 Very few black walnuts this year, from my Lady Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) tree. I detected no blossoms at all, through out the season. These showed up after a day with very brisk wind (30 Ausgust). Black walnuts are one of my favourites for eating, but the very devil to get the "nut" out. Squirrels hold them in their hands, and gnaw the outer hull off by rolling the nut round and round ~ the yellow outer hull flies right off as if peeling a radish, then they either crack the nut itself open and eat it then,, or whisk it off to their winter pantry. Black walnuts are a PRIZE for eco-dyeing or eco-prints, inks ~ paper, calligraphy, fibers of all types. Where I live, right up there with India Flint's love of eucalyptus!

Some years there is an overflowing bounty for the Gray squirrels, which are native to Washington, and Black Russian squirrels which are not.  What I find intriguing is that there have been fewer squirrels, Black or Gray, than any of the last 20 years. It feels odd somehow.

Directly north of Lady Black Walnut, is the most spectacular fir tree, perhaps 200 years old? According to the marvelous woman I purchased this wee bit of land from ~ who was in her late '80s ~ then ~ both the Black Walnut and Fir tree, were on this land when homesteaded by her parents. Now this Woman was one of the most interesting women I've had the privilege of knowing. Another story, for another time...I'm digressing.

The Fir Tree has been the home for over 3 years, of a Mrs. Black Squirrel's very large  nest. Her nest has been through 100 mph wind storms, torrential rain storms, winter weather with snow and ice, down to 20 below F. 100 degree heat. It moves with the tree - engineering feat ~ as if it were a small boat on waves. The black squirrels have been active year round, but not for the last couple of months, this year. The mother squirrel may have moved her territory and built a new nest in a different location. But today ~ 2 wee baby squirrels just popped their heads out of the nest! Wow - am I ever tickled!

Lady Black Squirrel's nest is an amazing architectural accomplishment. Watching her build it was a one-of-a-kind experience. It is stunningly beautiful. The nest I am telling about looks much like the one in the photo below, but more symmetrical and very large ~ about 2 feet tall, and maybe about 1.5 feet in diameter at the top. 

Photo ©Creasy Mahan Nature Preserve. What's that blob in the tree?

The black squirrel made her nest, in a triangular limb-crotch of the my fir tree, about 50 feet above the ground. She started with a very small rounded, basket-woven style foundation, using very small twigs and dried grasses. It looked a lot like the bottom of a twined Tlingit basket.  a rounded basket-weaving style. An example of the rounded base, formed around the limb-crotch can be seen here: Twined Tlingit Basket    ***Full attribution at end of post.

 

Mrs. Black Squirrel actually glued the twigs, dried grasses and fibers together.  She made the "glue" by chewing off lichen and mini-mosses from surrounding tree limbs, and applied that as glue to the sticks and grasses, inside of the woven nest structure. Then...layer on layer she built her nest. Incredible to watch, absolutely mesmerizing. Many times a year, I see her do the same thing - nest maintenance maybe, or preparing for winter cold and summer heat, or perhaps physical cleanliness. One thing that really stands out, is how diligent she was/is, in cleaning herself before building or adding on to her nest, or feeding her babies. I have a bird bath/watering bowl close to a plum tree. This is where she collects tiny lichen, chews it up with water, and spreads it on her head and legs. When she has babies, she will lay down on a limb with moss and lichen, as if it were a scrub brush or sponge, scoots around, then goes to water, and rinses herself. Natural anti-bacterial ~ phenomenal genetic memory ~ my viewpoint, not scientific at all.  

***Attribution of Tlingit basket photograph and detailed information:  

CV-2: Native American Indian baskets, a beautiful twined Tlingit basket, spruce root and maiden fern stems, embellished with a pattern of false embroidery, Alaska, c. 1910. The twined weave is extremely tight, and the decorations are very lovely. Condition is good, considering the age of the basket; there is one very small tear, c. 1/16 inch. Size: 4 3/4 inches high by 6 inches diameter at the rim. SOLD.  Native American Indian Baskets.

Curious and want to see more about squirrels and their nests?

squirrel nests    black squirrel building a nest video

 all about squirrel nest

Here is a very good place to learn more about First Nations' Baskets:

Encoded in the weave: Identifying your relative’s Native American basket

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adoration des fleurs

A page in an Altered Book. The poem is printed onto "scrumbled and dab-painted" paper bag. The acrylic paint has metallic flecks, which makes it challenging to photograph. The "frame" is a fibrous paper, a lovely fern-moss green. frame machine sewn onto poem center. then adhered to book page with Golden® matte medium. Pressed flowers in corners are covered with sanwa tissue, and adhered with the same medium. circa 2003-2005, best guess.

Attribution for poem varies ~  Count Your Age by Friends, Not Years. Count Your Life by Smiles, Not Tears

 

above: pressed flower detail, corner of "count your blessings" collage art.

A mixed media collage, an Altered Book page ~ celebrating found items, spring, and my love for pansies and violas. Background is a paper napkin from an afternoon tea with friends, always a luxury.

I first covered the book page with acrylic paint. I then cut a "frame" from the napkin, and adhered to page with a thinned gel medium. The pansies were crochet left-overs from another project, most likely an edging or doily, or maybe from the jadeite bowl that sits beside my armchair, and crocheted items sit in or get pitched into, while watching baseball or hockey. I do have oodles of them, which is hilarious when I think of it!  Pansies were attached to the page, by sewing beads through the center of the pansy and and then through the book page. This left the edges of the crochet pieces flexible. I really love this piece ~ I think my Mama would have as well.

note: to see more detail, click on photograph, then if you wish to see it larger with even more detail, click on the photograph that you have just opened. I hope it works that way...

 

 

Diogenes Lantern

Diogenes with His Lantern. Mini-book, bound in an altered-book. cover. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Diogenes with His lantern. Culture and change, myths. mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media.

Diogenes with His lantern. mini-book bound into altered book. Stamped and painted image, with pressed flower opposite. Golden® mixed-media, acrylic paint, rubber stamp. 

Diogenes with His lantern. Myths. Mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Diogenes with His lantern. babies and current or past "current events". Mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Diogenes with His lantern. Einstein and common reader. Mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Diogenes with His lantern. woman who runs with wolves. Mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Base book is a German language textbook, with interesting history. It was mine originally - high school German class (circa 1962). A younger sister ~ Juliette ~ used it in her high-school German class (circa 1968). It went the "rounds" as old textbooks do, and arrived "out of the blue" in my mailbox about 1991 from it's 6th "user" on endpiece. Owners signatures and miscellaneous information such as date, teacher/professor and various scriggles.

Materials:  paper cuttings/findings - totally random and seemingly unconnected - from old newspapers, old books and catalogs and "who knows where it came from" scraps of this and that caught my inner-eyes at one moment or another. Stories within stories, that speak with and for themselves, or perhaps in a way, closes the book on those stories.